CBS Mobile, which aims at bringing innovative products and wireless content to the consumer, has partnered with social-mapping service Loopt (News - Alert) to launch a location based mobile service. Organizations are innovating to leverage the power of advertising to attract customers to their business. The offering is the first of its kind in the United States and would provide location specific mobile ads on the user’s cell phone and offer the user the convenience of making a choice based on his present location.

 
The ads will be very relevant to the user’s location and could direct him to a nearby pizza joint or to a nearby book store. The advertisements could also offer promotional offers of a restaurant or a retail store that the user is passing by. The idea is to invite customers for prospective business and the advertisements will be designed to be least intrusive to users. The current practice of sending promotional offers as text messages can be very distracting and end up annoying some users.
 
“Consumers are savvy enough to expect advertising,” said Angela Steele, a director at Starcom USA, an ad-buying agency based in Chicago. “They are accepting of it, but they want it to be relevant. If they are getting something they are interested in, that is great. But if they are sending ads that are not relevant, people won’t want it.”
 
California based Loopt has currently made arrangements with carriers like Sprint (News - Alert) Nextel (News - Alert)  and the Boost Mobile MVNO to offer these services. The company is in the process of partnering with more carriers in order to cater to a larger number of subscribers. Loopt uses GPS technology to provide maps for mobile devices.
 
"Through our partnership with Loopt, our advertisers will be able to deliver targeted messages to potential customers who, based on their location, might be very likely to click or make a purchase. This makes the ads highly relevant to consumers and advertisers at the same time," said Cyriac Roeding, executive VP of CBS Mobile, in a statement.
 
“The key is to add value,” said Cyriac Roeding, who runs CBS Mobile. “At the end of the day, if the consumer doesn’t win in this game, there is no game.”
 
Currently Loopt has not approached any business for advertisements and it would be doing so shortly. The ads would also be displayed on CBS mobile sports and news websites. Currently CBS displays mobile ads targetting users of WAP mobile phones.
 
The new offering from CBS and Loopt can tap the mobile advertising market which is expected to grow both in the US as well as globally. According to mobile entertainment provider Limbo, the number of consumers who received advertisements on their mobile phone in the last quarter of 2007 touched Seventy-eight million in the US alone.
 
As with any service, the privacy of the user needs to be protected. The executives of the two companies insist that they do not store the location history of any user and the ads would be sent anonymously. These measures would ensure the privacy of the user.
 
Radhika Raghunath is a TMCnet Contributing Editor.
 
For all the latest enterprise IP communications, unified communications, and contact center news, please click here.

Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.

Today’s featured White Paper (News - Alert) (News - Alert) is titled Security Considerations for an IP PBX and Contact Center, brought to you by Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) (News - Alert)
 
 


Back to Communications Solutions