Starbucks and L’Oreal have recently hooked up with O2 to trial a new location based SMS/MMS marketing campaign. The service uses geo-fencing technology that automatically triggers an ad to be sent to a mobile device when its user enters a certain location, discerned from their proximity to mobile towers. If you opt in and provide O2 with a few details about yourself, you could be walking down your local high street, and find yourself with a text that gives you a discount at a local Starbucks or L’Oreal supplier.
This move will essentially bring the kind of dynamic, targeted marketing that was previously only really deliverable online, into the real world giving the high street retailer an opportunity to fight back against the online biggies like Amazon. Or it could just be another way for the big brands to make their high street voices louder and take custom away from smaller, rather than online, retailers.
The most important question though is whether the UK public will see this as intrusive, or useful. For me, receiving a text is still a pleasant and oddly exciting experience and is a great way to feel popular, but the happiness can quickly turn to annoyance if the vibration in my pocket turns out to be a useless correspondence from my mobile company. A mobile ad is going to have to be incredibly relevant and useful if it wants to make up for the disappointment. And what happens if this takes off and other companies get involved? Will I be able to take a step in the real world that isn’t accompanied by offers of free fries at McDonalds or half-price scarves in Topshop? Will texts cease being a personal correspondence and become more like the far more disposable email? Will we all be getting spam filters for our SMS service? If so, I might have to go back to carrier pigeons.
We wait with caffeine fuelled anticipation whilst wondering if it “was worth it” to give up our precious personal data and permission.
