Jun 10, 2015
A new dimension in location marketing
B2B | Geofencing | SFBJ
Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal.
Most of us with smartphones have been surprised by the occasional highly targeted mobile ads that not only reflect our interests, but also our location.
More often than not, the ads serve up a message or a coupon that drives consumers to a physical location to redeem, or they have to download an app in order to be served up the information in the first place.
“Everyone spoke of how the digital world was going to replace all traditional print media in the late ’90s,”
David Weiss, a lawyer-turned-inventor in the early rise of the dot-com era in Silicon Valley, is out to change all that. The owner of Boca Raton-based Media Bridge LLC, Weiss is focused on presenting consumers with a traditional point-of-purchase medium – a poster – that they can interact with digitally. In fact, the poster allows them to connect with the digital world to purchase tickets, obtain a video, download an app or a game, or buy something and have it shipped.
Connecting the physical print and digital worlds
“And since then, I have been thinking about ways to connect the digital and print media worlds.” Weiss said.
Weiss’ printed poster is not an ordinary poster. He refers to it as a smart poster, incorporating an inexpensive technology that allows smartphones without an app to tap it to interact. The only technology is an antenna on a sticker that adheres to the back of the poster and, when produced in quantity, is very economical. Media Bridge licenses the technology. Weiss says he has a patent that covers the smart poster, as well as other applications, and Media Bridge charges per click, like many other digital media channels.
Immediate interaction with brands
The marketing power for the smart poster is untapped, in the sense that Weiss only began offering it recently. However, marketers can understand how the application of this digital “media bridge” from old-world, out-of-home point-of-sale to new-world digital will empower buyers and sellers with instant gratification and interaction reinforced by brand messaging.
Even more exciting for marketers is the opportunity to integrate the smart poster with the other near field communications that are fueling location-based marketing.
The landscape emerged with geofencing, which casts a wide net targeting consumers’ smartphones with pertinent mobile ads for events, destination shopping at malls, casinos or coupons for a nearby dining establishment. Since its inception, it has proven very effective. Take location marketing integration a step further by combining geofence ad targeting with beacon technologies that use a chip to detect consumers at close range – in 10 to 20 feet. You’ve created an impressive one-two punch to increase ROI of ads 200 percent or more.
A 24/7 opportunity
Now layer in the smart poster, which can actually interact with the customer at an even closer range and close the sale. Together they can revolutionize the future of retailing because, when store hours are over, the smart poster can keep attracting customers and delivering on the sale, 24/7.
While Weiss is both a local and internationally recognized inventor, his knowledge of location-based marketing (also called proximity marketing) is winning more international acclaim every day, and he will be a keynote speaker at the Smart Contactless World Exhibition and Conference in Marseille, France, this September.
The opportunity to merge the activities of the real world in a more relevant way with the convenience of information and purchasing in the digital world can make local out-of-home marketing communications more powerful, more predictable and more profitable than ever.