Will 2011 be the year of location-aware applications?
- Posted By:
- Nik Brown
- Date:
- April 15th, 2011 /// Marketing Trends
All the keys have been in place for a while: Mobile data, GPS and high-resolution screens. Services like Foursquare and Google Goggles have popularized the use of the GPS in today’s smartphones, but we’ve only just scratched the surface.
Last month the world’s first location-aware music album was released. Created by D.C.-based band Bluebrain and released as an iPhone app, “The National Mall” features tracks that mutate based on your location.
2011 is set to finally become the year of location-aware applications. Smartphone penetration is only increasing and the latest figures show that we are finally breaking the 25% mark here in the U.S. In fact, in 2011 global smartphone sales are expected to grow 49% (source).
So what does all this mean for the advertising industry?
As we narrow down our general audience to a very specific target audience through tools such as contextual advertising and location data, we gain incredible power as advertisers. We gain the ability to talk directly to a person in the palm of their hand (or in their ear), about a product RIGHT NEXT TO THEM!
Consumers have always had a love/hate relationship with advertising, but that is mostly due to relevancy issues. The reason people hate popup ads so much is because it interrupts their interaction with content by force-feeding a message that isn’t necessarily relative to them. If we can target a message about a nearby restaurant as they are looking for dinner ideas, that would be a completely different matter.
Will we abuse the power that location-based information affords us, and alienate the very people we are seeking to convert? Or will we create smart, effective advertising that serves both the customer and advertiser? That is up to us…
Go be creative, effective, and most important, RELATIVE!
