Tag: location based advertising

Location based marketing used by Unilever through iBeacons

| February 11, 2015

The massive corporation is using this offline shopper data collection to target mobile ads.

Unilever is now using location based marketing techniques to be able to better understand how appealing shoppers find its brands while they are in store, so that they can later send mobile ads that will be relevant to those individual consumers.

The company will be using iBeacons to be able to glean the information about the smartphone using consumers.

The idea is that while this type of location based marketing could encourage purchases at the point of sale, it can also be used for a broader purpose. This is primarily to use the technology to lower the consumer acquisition cost by providing each individual with content that has been customized to a consumer’s individual interests, wants, and needs.

Unilever entered into a location based marketing partnership in order to be able to test this concept.

Location based marketing - PartnershipIn this geolocation technology using effort, Unilever is working with Glimr, a data specialist firm, and Mindshare. This strategy steps away from the “traditional” use of beacons, which have been conducted by other companies and that have focused nearly exclusively on driving performance, in favor of an effort to build the company’s brands.

In the pilot in Sweden, consumers who visited a food truck that was Knorr branded were given the opportunity to sample its latest flavor of soup. Those shoppers were then retargeted with a mobile ad the next time they launched the Aftonbladet Swedish newspaper app. The typical display ads that had been displayed within that app were often replaced with coupons that were designed to provide shoppers with a reminder of the campaign, and to underscore the idea that Knorr is a brand that is modern and that is keeping up with the things that people care about the most, right now.

At the moment, the company hasn’t revealed any intentions to expand the location based marketing program to other regions, such as the United Kingdom or the United States. However, Unilever has indicated that it will be moving its tests using iBeacons into major supermarkets, over the first half of this year.

Mobile marketing is misunderstood by 97 percent of retailers

| June 30, 2014

Only a very small percentage of companies actually know what they’re doing when advertising on smartphones.

A recent study conducted by Boston Retail Partners has revealed that while many retailers are attempting to use mobile marketing to their best advantage, only a very small number of them are actually proving that they understand this channel and are utilizing it properly.

Smartphone ads and promotions have a great deal of potential for reaching a consumer at the best possible moment.

The opportunity presented by mobile marketing is a unique one, as the retailer would ideally be able to engage a customer using a device that he or she has available and turned on at virtually every moment. When that customer is already in or near a shop location, added enticements can be provided to encourage a sale – or a larger sale. However, as much as merchants do say that they want to be able to provide this experience, few have shown that they have figured out how to do it, quite yet.

Ninety five percent of retailers have identified customer engagement among top initiatives for mobile marketing.

At the same time, only 3 percent showed Boston Retail Partners that they had the ability to identify a customer when he or she actually stepped into a shop, according tomobile marketing the firm’s survey results.

The Commerce Benchmark Survey included the participation of 500 retailers and showed that within the next five years, the majority (three quarters) of retailers do intend to put technology into place that will allow them to be able to identify customers who have stepped into their locations.

That said, at the same time, the survey showed that retailers are starting to learn the ropes and they are discovering what they need to do when it comes to mobile marketing in the most effective way, through the use of location based technologies. Approximately 63 percent have intentions to provide real-time retail from their point of sale, while another 62 percent have plans to advertise over smartphones. Moreover, 61 percent intend to set up real-time analytics that will give them a measure of their effectiveness through proper analysis.