Thursday October 16, 2014

• Location targeting is (a) becoming mainstream (b) working spectacularly well (via smart notifications) (c) being worked on in India: Details below.

• Location targeting is becoming mainstream: Beacons, tiny low-powered radio transmitters that send signals to phones just feet away, have quickly become a new front in the advertising industry’s chase to find you whenever, and exactly wherever, you are. Although most consumers are just learning about these devices, tens or even hundreds of thousands of them have been installed across the country: outdoors on buildings, inside stores and even at National Football League and Major League Baseball stadiums.

• Smart notifications based on location targeting worked spectacularly well for American Eagle: American Eagle Outfitters — an early adopter of beacon technology — used push notifications delivered through the Shopkick app to successfully draw more customers into fitting rooms this summer. For nearly two months the retailer sent a push notifications to select customers as they entered the 100 of the company’s 929 stores that are outfitted with beacons. The message offered 25 kicks — Shopkick’s rewards currency — if they tried something on in a fitting room. American Eagle found that customers that received the offer were more than twice as likely to try on clothing as those who didn’t. “That’s incredible. It’s way beyond anything I anticipated,” said Joe Megibow, chief digital officer at American Eagle Outfitters.  American Eagle Outfitters placed a beacon at the front entrance and in the fitting room of each trial store. When a customer with the Shopkick app entered the store, the beacon sensed their smartphone’s presence via Bluetooth, and triggered Shopkick to display a message offering 25 extra kicks. The beacon in the fitting room determined if the same customer had approached it, and awarded the 25 extra kicks. More than 10,000 customers took part in the trial.

• Location Targeting Startups in India: AdNear secured $19 million in its Series B Location targeting: Bangalore and Singapore-based AdNear Pte Ltd, a Big Data company that helps brands reach out to audiences by analysing location data over a period of time, has secured $19 million in its Series B round of funding from Telstra Ventures and Global Brain Corp., with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Canaan Partners. AdNear will use the capital to expand into multiple new markets. As part of the deal, Mark Sherman, MD of Telstra Ventures, will join AdNear’s board. “Our proprietary technology enables us to help major brands across Asia Pacific fine-tune their consumer targeting by having access to real-time location intelligence. Location data-driven insights are powerful and marketers can use these data points to understand consumer behaviour and also build customised campaigns as per their target audience,” said Anil Mathews, CEO of AdNear. “We are constantly experimenting with location data-sets for various use-cases and will be productising some of these in the coming months,” he added.