WARC, 5 March 2014
LONDON: Brands and media owners in the UK are exploring the
use of proximity based marketing tools and their incorporation into apps in
order to drive greater in-store engagement and bring the digital and physical
worlds closer together.
Apple's iBeacons is the latest such tool, based on Bluetooth
and joining NFC- and GSM-based systems. Trials in the US are tracking the time
customers spend in-store and targeting customers in particular aisles with
coupons, a level of detail unachievable using GPS.
In the UK, Marketing Week reported that bookmaker William
Hill will be using the iBeacons tool to trigger in-app messages and real-time
betting information at the upcoming Cheltenham Festival – four days of horse
racing in the west of England.
It also quoted a spokesman for snack food giant Mondelez,
who said the firm saw "a lot of potential in this type of technology"
for disrupting consumers' path-to-purchase.
Outdoor specialists such as Exterion Media are reported
looking with interest at the technology, regarding it as more "consumer
friendly" than NFC.
Elsewhere, tech entrepreneur Dan Wagner, talking to the
Financial Times, claimed that his new PowaTag app, which also interacts with
iBeacons, would completely change how people shopped.
The app brings together several technologies in one package
and enables users to buy products directly from print and audio ads by
detecting embedded codes, as well as receive special offers based on their
location in-store.
Wagner said he already had 240 brands on board including
retail chains such as Waitrose, Argos and Carrefour.
"This flips the balance from online players to physical
retailers," he said. "It's an omni-channel platform that's unique in
the world."
The iBeacon integration is currently restricted to marketing
purposes but Wagner said it could ultimately act as a checkout by recognising
when a consumer was leaving the store.
Data sourced from Marketing Week, Financial Times;
additional content by Warc staff
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