Increasingly, location is becoming the primary context within which advertisers are connecting with consumers.

The mobile device is to the consumer as much a location- awareness device as it is a computer or a phone.

The little blue dot in the center of the map is the new digital representation of me, and the mobile device in- creasingly serves to organize a vast sea of digital infor- mation through the filter of me, right here in this place, and right now at this moment.

Me. Here. Now.
The so-called “Me. Here. Now.” world view of consumers
using the phone as a lens through which to organize the digital world around them is emerging as a dominant consumer attitude, particularly as smartphones further penetrate the market.

As part of our continued effort at Draftfcb to explore and master this consumer attitude, and the mobile-based lo- cation services designed to facilitate it, we took advan- tage of a unique pilot program earlier this year.

Location, location, location
AT&T partnered with location-based mobile marketing platform Placecast to offer consumers ShopAlerts, which consisted of messages, offers, rewards or coupons sent to their mobile phones when they were near a store or brand via a technology called geo-fencing.

The location-based mobile messaging service was tested
from April 3 through June 4, 2011, among AT&T customers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco who opted in to receive messages.

The pilot included eight major marketers, including four Draftfcb clients. We also conducted a post-test survey among consumers who engaged with ShopAlerts offered by the four marketers to determine consumer prefer- ences and attitudes.

Each of the ShopAlert participants had different business challenges ranging from pure coupon delivery scanable from the phone screen at the register, to more broadly defined brand awareness objectives. Our goal was to try and determine if the geo-triggered messages would work beyond pure offer delivery and redemption, to influence other key marketing objectives.

Consumers who opted in for the ShopAlerts received a maximum of three messages per week from three differ- ent brands based on their proximity to the brand’s geo-fence. The minimum time interval was two days between messages received.

We polled consumers who opted in to the ShopAlerts among our four clients after the program ended, and we got some stunning results. With a nearly 100 percent open rate on the alerts, 50 percent of consumers who opted in to receive messages from the brands wanted more information. We even found in some cases there was a 22-25 percent purchase conversion on some of the offers.

We believe this test, and the strong survey data resulting from it, are clear indications that consumers are eager for the hyper-relevancy that location-triggered messag- es can deliver, and that location is truly the new context for digital marketing.

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