Location Based Marketing — Could it Really Work?

Russell Buckley has written a post on location-based marketing based on his experience at ZagMe, which did that stuff…Everyone has an opinion on this stuff, but this particular paragraph got me thinking.

Firstly, let’s bust the Pull myth. Most ordinary people don’t want the hassle of pulling down information. They want it presented to them as a seamless part of their device experience, to ignore or act on, as they see fit.

He’s right — most people won’t bother to “pull” even if they want the deal, but it’s equally true that people don’t want marketing messages. I think even if they opt-in to the service an excessive number of messages will quickly become annoying. There is a third option though…
The trick would be a method to push messages to a handset without using messages. That way there wouldn’t be the message tone (getting you to check your phone only to find an ad) but the person wouldn’t have to actively request the message, it would be sent to their phone for them to see when they look at it. This could require a specific application on the phone, but I think there’s a more elegant solution: scrolling tickers.
Many telcos are now providing a “scrolling ticker” to send information such as news, weather and mobile content to the handset (check out Cingular’s ticker for an example). It would be simple to add targeted advertisements to the service which users could opt-in to either because they were keen to receive targeted marketing messages that interest them or (and this is far more likely) there is some other benefit, such as free or discounted mobile services.
The best part is that by clicking on the link in the ticker they can get a full multi-media experience — far more than is possible in a message. There could also be a time limit on the ad — it gets broadcast when the person passes a shop and then stops some time later when it’s obvious they’re nowhere near it.
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