elstra is building on its recently unveiled service—Mobile Location Manager—which tracks the location of GSM and 3G phone users, by delivering rich content based on location.
Content provider HWW is developing the location-based service, which debuts in October for Telstra’s yourRestaurant guide.
HWW’s managing director, Jennifer Wilson, says telcos can now use the GEO codes of phones, with latitude and longitude references, to match mobile phone users to nearby businesses.
“If you go for dinner somewhere, you can find a bar nearby to have a drink,” Wilson says.
She says clients are showing huge interest in location marketing, but warns them to treat mobile marketing as a unique channel.
“There’s a tendency to treat the mobile like TV with a 30-second commercial, or it’s a bit like the internet so we’ll put CPM-type click models. People are trying to pigeonhole the mobile into an existing medium,” Wilson says.
Wilson believes broadcasting marketing on mobiles is useless, and that brands need to use location-based services to target messages relevant to user behaviour.
“I can find you somebody who is within an age range, and a demographic, with a source of interest that you want, who’s doing a specific thing at a specific time, and give them your message,” she says.
But that message has to be targeted to solicit the best response, Wilson says, like someone who had watched sporting movies, and done mapping searches for gyms being offered a discount on running shoes.
And when applied to the mobile, the tracking technology becomes the ultimate direct marketing tool.
“It’s the Holy Grail that advertisers have been talking about for ages, but it’s so possible on the mobile. I don’t know who you are, but I can see what you’ve been doing,” Wilson says.
CEO of mobile agency TigerSpike, Luke Janssen, says location-based services offer brands perfect timing.
“Rather than saying ‘Buy a pair of Levi’s jeans because there’s a special on,’ it’s saying ‘Buy a pair of Levi jeans because there’s a special on, and you’re outside the shop,’ Janssen says.
TigerSpike is talking to clients about using location-based services to match consumers with petrol stations, pubs and restaurants. But Janssen warns opt-in is crucial for the channel to earn trust.
“People have to allow themselves to be notified by location,” Janssen says, adding consumers will show acceptance by downloading applications to their mobile that allow their whereabouts to be “sniffed out”.
“Some customers may feel that it’s Big Brother-ish, that somebody knows where they are at all times, but I think people will define how they want to be contacted, and opt-in to the service,” he says.
The Australian Direct Marketing Association’s (ADMA) legal director, Jodie Sangster, says the spam fines enforced in 2004—which range from $2000 to $1.1m per day—will be a serious deterrent to mobile spam. She adds that legislation like The Spam Act, and the E-Marketing Code of Practice keep players honest and safeguard consumers.
Communicator Interactive’s MD, Jason Jercinovic, says the location-based relationship has to be mutual, creative and relevant to succeed.
“We can put the brand in the hand when they’re actually in the store. So you’re talking to customers who matter. As long as the campaign has integrity, and is doing something interesting, then users will say ‘Cool, I’m up for that’,” Jercinovic says.
Jercinovic points out that while the “proximity marketing” of outdoor campaigns is controlled by consumers who choose whether or not to download content, location-based marketing is initiated by brands when a customer moves into a buying zone.
Both Communicator Interactive and TigerSpike advise marketers to add a location field to their databases to accommodate the new pinpointing functionality. This will give brands more sophisticated mobile strategies.
“Start building the foundations, because one day you’re going to build a house, but you don’t know what it’s going to look like yet,” says Janssen.
Legion Interactive’s CEO, David Burden, says location’s innovation will unlock vast opportunities for marketers to further develop an interactive relationship with the consumer. He says the onus is now on the carriers to roll out the service for brands to reach “100% of the opt-in consumer base”.
Mobile 365’s MD in Australia, Cameron Franks, says carriers are currently assessing the business rules and privacy issues of location technology before giving access to third-party players like digital agencies. But Franks says when Mobile 365 launched location-based services in the UK in 2003, the hype didn’t translate to huge usage.
“It didn’t grow as fast as we had hoped in the UK, partly because the charges made to request someone’s location made the service more expensive,” Franks says.
HWW’s Wilson predicts the uptake of location-based services in the first half of 2007, with the technology allowing people to track each other for social and safety reasons, including mobile phones that let parents monitor a child’s location.
