Hyperlocal on Mobile: #SFSW12

The subhead of the session is “Right Time, Right Place, Right Ad”

Greg Sterling moderating

Eli Portnoy: CEO, ThinkNear
Anne Bezancon: President, Placecast
David Staas: CEO, JiWire

Staas: Jiwire rolling out free wifi in exchange for engaging with the brand’s advertising. Launching with British Airways, Comcast & Hyatt. Oh joy.

Portnoy: Finds stuff around you so you can interact with it on mobile.

Bezancon: 10MM+ opted-in users.

Portnoy: Traditionally local advertising was at the DMA level. We define hyperlocal as targeting within 100 meters of the target.

Bezancon: Hyperlocal is whomever is able to communicate to a user at the right place and right time with something they can act on now.

Staas: $70B of US local ads are national brands marketing at a local level.

Sterling: Enough with the lingo, give me facts!

Bezancon: Out of every 100 offer messages sent to users about half walk into a store and about half of them buy. 25% go into the store the same day they get the offer. 50-70% go in within four days. Our smallest geofence is 1-1.5 miles.

Staas: AmEx used JiWire to target card holders in an airport to remind them of benefits of using card for rentals. Best Buy running banners in mobile apps that lead to finding deals/products in nearby stores.

Portnoy: Electric car company set up kiosks in shopping malls to drive test-drives. ThinkNear targeted people who were in the malls. 5x typical performance of a non-hyperlocal campaign.

Sterling: Awesome! Why isn’t everybody doing this?

Bezancon: Placecast uses opt-in SMS messaging. Not display.

Portnoy: Fundamental challenge of hyperlocal is by definition you are filtering out a lot of inventory.

Staas: The challenge in the industry is education for brands.

Bezancon: The opt-in approach for mobile – the messages you get need to be few and far between and extraordinarily relevant.

Staas: VW campaign at Superbowl.  Geofenced around the stadium to get people at the game to watch the commercial they bought.  Viewership went way up during the game.

Bezancon: Location will be woven into everything.  We ran an ad for Starbucks and depending on the weather, we ran an ad for a cold drink or a hot drink.

Portnoy: Every ad medium has had a catalyst. Search+intent, etc.  For mobile, that catalyst is location.

Predictions:

Staas: Digital FSI business is the next big thing. Location will unlock.
Bezancon: 3 years from now 100% of mobile ads will be opt-in
Portnoy: We’ll be talking about “location” not “mobile” as screens/devices won’t matter