Freckle IoT & @BlueBite Partner 2 Create North America’s Largest Proximity Network
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Freckle IoT (The Internet of Things), a New York-based ad tech company that activates next generation connected devices, has made a groundbreaking partnership with Blue Bite, whereby 60,000 beacons will be deployed across the US, creating, what is claimed to be, North America’s largest proximity network and the spearheading of innovation in mobile location-based services.
Several thousand are already installed, while others are in the process of being installed.
Connecting Freckle IoT’s open beacon ecosystem to Blue Bite’s extensive location partnerships and mTAG platform enables advertisers to launch innovative, integrated marketing campaigns that connect with consumers across digital, mobile, and out-of-home environments with scale.
“With this partnership, we are embarking on the next era of mobile activation – which is based on The Internet of Things,” says Neil Sweeney, president and CEO of Freckle IoT.
“As more people adopt connected devices, marketers have grown eager to engage consumers on the path-to-purchase using hyper-local strategies. The scale of this launch means we can provide brands with infinitely greater opportunities to engage their target audience than with what is possible under the boxed-in solutions available in the market.”
The partnership harnesses Blue Bite’s longstanding knowledge of out-of-home mobile activations and taps into the company’s extensive roster of location partners. Freckle IoT’s open beacon network connects the company’s growing number of application partners with its beacon ecosystem, solving the issue of scale in proximity deployments and bringing an additional layer of data sophistication to client campaigns. Instead of being locked within a closed framework of standalone beacon locations with a dedicated application, brands can harness any application enabled with Freckle IoT’s software development kit to tap into the beacon network and deliver engaging messaging to their target audience.
“We are not tied to one specific brand of beacons and are actually using hardware from multiple providers, depending on the requirements of the specific deployments and the capabilities of the beacons,” says Mikhail Damiani, CEO and co-founder of Blue Bite.
Capitalizing on the promise of the Internet of Things, beacons are placed in inventive locations, including: transit; street furniture; airports; college campuses; movie theaters; bars; and taxis.
“For any city-owned media, municipalities need to approve installation of the beacons before we deploy them,” says Damiani. “In certain cases, the retailer or venue owns the beacons and we help them monetize their footprint with outside advertising, in other scenarios, we own the beacons and share the revenue with our network and venue partners.”
The beacons enable applications carrying the Freckle IoT’s software development kit to provide rich content through mobile or wearable devices and target in-app advertising on a hyper-local level, thereby engaging connected consumers along the path-to-purchase. Through this approach, brands and agencies can deliver innovative, contextually relevant messaging to engaged and interested consumers who have opted in, building connections and avoiding ‘spam’or ‘junk mail’ like messaging.
“Brands crave innovative ways to use connected devices to engage their consumers in contextually relevant ways,” says Damiani. “The fact is, the tools haven’t existed for brands to deliver on widespread value and scalability with low barriers to entry – until now.”
Through this approach, brands and agencies can deliver innovative, contextually relevant messaging to engaged and interested consumers who have opted in.
“Advertising is sold by Freckle and Blue Bite as well as our OOH and venue partners,” says Damiani
Asked more about how it will work in terms on monetization for Blue Bite, Freckle and clients, Damiani says, “Monetization is similar to what we are doing with geofencing and mobile display advertising where brands will pay for delivering content to their target audience and that revenue is split between the publishers, venue owners and sales organizations.”
Blue Bite is a leading mobile-marketing solutions provider utilizing a targeted, location-based approach to reach captive audiences on their personal mobile devices by leveraging NFC, BLE, QR, WiFi, SMS, Geofencing and other technologies. Blue Bite has partnered with top Out-of-Home companies in the world and prides itself on creating an interactive two-way engagement by enabling consumers to connect with digital and traditional media via their mobile phones.
Freckle IoT is a technology company founded to help brands adapt to the future of connected devices and advertising. As a leader in the proximity marketing space, Freckle IoT works with brands, publishers and industry partners to bring innovative solutions to the market. Freckle IoT helps advertisers harness the opportunities presented by next generation consumer technologies, ranging from smartphones, wearables to other intelligent devices. Freckle IoT’s mission is to move past traditional advertising models and to seek out innovative solutions to the advertising challenges of tomorrow.
Follow DailyDOOH