
Location-based marketing campaign, powered by LOC-AID - doratech
http://www.loc-aid.com/ShopAlerts_powered_by_LOC-AID
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doratech
Earlier this year, in a new attempt to attract more customers to its stores,
North Face, which sells outdoor apparel and gear, had decided to adopt a novel
strategy of location-enabled mobile ads which was powered by LOC-AID. In a
nutshell, the company sent promotional text messages to people as soon they
are in a defined radius of their stores. Cell phones have long intrigued
advertisers because they form part of person’s personal accessories which can
be used as a vehicle through which you can track a person’s location in
relation to his or her distance from a store. Marketer’s place value on the
ability to message a person, when he or she is close to a point of sale.

North Face’s mobile campaign early this year was location-enabled by LOC-AID
Technologies, the largest mobile location aggregator in the Americas. The
campaign was crafted by Placecast, a mobile ad company. The technology used is
sometimes referred to as Geo-fencing. When a person crosses a virtual
threshold, a text message is sent, but conditional on the person having
accepted to receive messages. Placecast uses a number of techniques like
triangulation and a phone’s GPS signal to establish its precise location. In
suburban areas the texting range was set to be a mile from the store, while in
urban areas it was half that. North Face was enabled to send messages about
promotions and new arrivals in the first instance. Per the NYT article dated
February 22, 2010, North Face would restrict the number of messages per week
to avoid annoyance and will ensure the messages should not be construed as
intrusive. Mobile advertising is expected to have a $ 1.4 billion budget by
2014.

