Big Data and the Local Mobile Promise

Local content and ad delivery continue to get smarter with more context around people, places and how they’re connected, says Michael Boland of BIA/Kelsey.

With smartphone penetration breaking the 50 percent barrier, there is an explosion in geo-data, and various alternatives are emerging to make sense of it.

One approach getting traction is to combine location data with “Big Data” on users (demographic, behaviorial, historical) and contextual data to help marketers extract more useful information.  Examples are Localeze, Sense Networks, PlaceIQ, Placed, Locu, Factual, Urban Mapping, and mobile local ad networks xAd, WHEREads, JiWire.

Read more here.  Are there other approaches possible?  A topic for another day…

October 22 update:  Mike Boland provides an update on the some of the players here.

 

Local will be an increasing play for national marketers.

I agree with Mindshare North America CEO Antony Young in this recent article for Ad Age: Major national and international marketers will invest the time and money to take advantage of multi-local marketing.  He reviews recent multi-local strategies from Walmart, L’Oreal, and Nike.

Some of his key points:

“It takes insight into local tastes, local demographics, local issues and local competitors to be relevant and win the consumer.  Organize national, act local is starting to get some traction.

The media are leading the way.  Media properties’ local targeting is increasingly offering more precision. Hyperlocal websites are providing local content and localized national advertising platforms by individual towns.

Most marketers will need a better payout to shift national dollars to local, posing a riddle for the media companies betting so much of their own money on a local strategy.  Data will have to be the compass for media sellers and buyers alike.  Mobile ad network xAd recently published data showing that locally-targeted mobile display ads deliver 5% to 8% click-through rates, compared to 0.6% for typical mobile display ads.

There’s no doubt that local will be an increasing play for national marketers. It’s what brands need to do to engage consumers and grow. However, it is going to be more challenging for marketers to execute and more costly and complex to orchestrate.”

Read Antony’s full piece here.