Has the internet changed the nature of the way shopping occurs in stores these days? more
To a society fascinated with the process of buying and consumption, a great retail experience should be of significant importance; yet despite the fact that 90% of dollars are spent “in store,” the media are crowded with stories and analysis of “online experience” but scant mention is made of the ways in which we can improve the “in-store” experience for consumers.
Location awareness and location-based services have been popping up all around us lately, taking the mobile scene by storm. It seems that all the rage nowadays is about “where” you are and who/what is “around you”. Take foursquare (a location based recommendation engine) for instance, they take location very seriously in fact Yelp (a location based restaurant recommendation engine) was quick to launch a “shout” feature that would rival foursquare.
Context-awareness though has taken a backseat to this cacophony of location services, and it’s a challenge to find decent applications or services that not only care about where you are, but also about the what you’re doing and when. Which got me thinking that most firms have it backward – Context should be defined by Location – not the other way around.
Context awareness, as a whole concept though, asks a lot more questions:
* Where are you?
* What are you doing? And for how long will you be doing it?
* Are you going anywhere?
* What time is it?
* Who is with you?
* What are your personal preferences?
* What are the preferences of the people with you?
It will be interesting to watch this space to see how things evolve from here. What’s needed in my opinion is a true Digital In-Store Ad Network that is defined by location (or as we have called it Presence) that can help the brand managers who want to reach out to you in certain locations and provide contextual ads much like Google does today on their search results. Except in this instance the webpage is the storefront and the contextual ads are the brand offers that are personalize just for you.
Imagine if you walked into a Target at Stamford, CT, a Digital In-Store Ad Network could provide the following context: Female shopper, age 32, entered Target 11:41 am, Stamford, CT, average grocery visit 32 min, frequency once a week. Wouldn't a brand company, like PNG, love to communicate with you when you are at Target based on this context.
And as a shopper, you could get a relevant and meaningful offer on your cell phone and with no more coupon clipping!
