Over the past few years, IAB has dramatically increased its efforts to provide education, discussions and engagement to agencies, media buyers and brand marketers. IAB Mobile Road Show: Spotlight on Location Data is providing an incredible forum for marketers to learn, connect and share.
The IAB Mobile Road Show stopped this summer in Chicago and Austin and reached New York City on Aug. 21, hosting an intimate breakfast for agencies and brand marketers in the IAB Ad Lab.
There was energy and passion in the packed room from beginning to end. The event was sponsored by The Weather Company, a firm that has used location-based campaigns for 30 years, and Verve, a location-centric mobile advertising platform.
To give attendees actionable strategies for their mobile location-based campaigns, a panel of talented marketing professionals covered four successful and insightful case studies of brands that used location-based data to drive awareness and sales.
1. LIN Mobile and regional sporting retailer
One of the country’s largest specialty sporting retailers wanted to drive foot traffic and sales in their stores using location-driven couponing. LIN Mobile offered them a responsive mobile ad unit that provided a unique store-specific barcode and then linked the sales to the retailer’s unified POS system to assess the effectiveness of its location-targeted offering. The campaign delivered strong results: 168 percent ROI on spend and a threefold increase in average order volume.
2. PlaceIQ and the Montana Office of Tourism
Montana isn’t the first destination snow sports enthusiasts consider in their travel plans. The Montana Office of Tourism wanted to change that and draw these adventure seekers to their slopes that last year boasted plenty of deep, perfect powder. They engaged PlaceIQ, a location-based marketing agency, to create the #MontanaMoments campaign. By tapping into consumers with specific demographics who frequent the slopes of other competitive locations, PlaceIQ was able to visually showcase Montana’s winter wonderland with beautiful creative that ultimately doubled travel to Montana by the test group over the control group.
3. SessionM and Mondelēz International
BelVita has long been a popular breakfast food in the UK. They recently made a move into the US to meet the needs of American adults who want a healthy, convenient and tasty on-the-go breakfast. Mondelēz International, the parent company of the belVita brand, engaged SessionM to help them reach the right consumers at the right time. SessionM has a community of users on their mobile loyalty platform who have opted in to share demographic, preference and location-based information in exchange for valuable offers. Together, the companies designed an in-store mobile campaign based upon consumer check-ins to deliver enticing coupons for consumers to buy belVita products. This campaign successfully boosted awareness and sales of belVita among the exact target audience Mondelēz wanted to reach.
4. Verve and national clothing retailer
Verve and their national clothing retailer partner had three specific goals prior to designing their location-based campaign: Drive foot traffic and sales during busy holiday shopping seasons, increase awareness of holiday sales and drive awareness of store grand openings. By using precise customer segmentation and a host of location-based tools including geo-fencing, social location and dynamic incentives, this campaign was wildly successful. It lifted foot traffic by 419 percent and increased visit frequency by 478 percent during one of the busiest holiday shopping periods of the year.
While these four campaigns were focused on very different brands, engaged different partners and had different goals, they all share a set of common best practices.
1. Kevin Wassong, LIN Mobile’s CEO, wisely said, “Just because you can geo-fence doesn’t mean you should.” Geo-fencing is a method in which you target a consumer with content based upon a set radius from a specific location. For example, a retailer may serve up a coupon for a store when a customer is within a five-mile radius of a specific store location. Wassong’s point is clear. That type of offer can be effective depending upon who gets the coupon, the type of retailer and the value of the offer. Geo-fencing is not a one-size-fits-all method.
2. Location-based tech innovations such as beacons, unified POS at retailers and easy-to-use opt-in systems have created incredible opportunities for brands. It’s worthwhile for agencies and brands to continually stay updated on these new location-based technologies. What seems impossible today may well be possible tomorrow. You want to be ahead of, or at least in stride with, your competitors.
3. Location-based data for campaigns must be placed in context of other factors for a product or brand. For example, belVita and SessionM used a mobile coupon to drive sales. Prior to this campaign, belVita was shelved in the snack aisle of stores next to Oreos even though belVita is a healthy breakfast food. Had the mobile coupon campaign been launched and advertised the product as a healthy breakfast food prior to the belVita brand management team getting their product appropriately placed in stores, shoppers with the coupons wouldn’t have been able to find the product on the shelves. No matter how great the strategy, if shoppers can’t find the product, the campaign will not deliver results.
The IAB Mobile Road Show continues with its last stop Oct. 23 in San Francisco, open to all agencies and brand marketers. To learn more about mobile and location data, please visit here.