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.
In 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.
According to the media convergence group head at Smart Communications, “Unlike other mobile ads solutions in the market, Smart Ads is the first and only service capable of determining the real-time location of subscribers who have opted-in or signified interest to accept mobile ads. A subscriber’s location in real time is our main differentiator. Brand offers delivered while they are still within the specified location.”