JiWire’s Compass: Unlocking Location Ads for All
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
JiWire, location-based mobile media company reaching the on-the-go audience, has launched Compass, a new location-based advertising platform that provides mobile app and public Wi-Fi users with interactive location-related ads.
Until now, location-based advertising has largely been limited to companies with physical venues, such as retailers and restaurants. Compass unlocks location for all companies by providing product availability and real time in-stock information, directing consumers to any place where a brand’s products are sold.
Location-marketing pioneers Clinique, HP, Groupon, and Ritz Camera have signed on as launch partners for the new platform.
Compass reaches an audience of more than 40 million on-the-go users, connecting them with brands beyond the check-in. It provides:
- Real time inventory on what’s in-stock;
- The ability to geo-locate products and service catalogs from over 200,000 retailers and product manufactures;
- More than 3 million unique product SKU’s across the U.S.;
- Βοth walking and driving directions;
- Enables users to call the retailer;
- Provides the ability to put products on hold and make online purchases that will be ready for pick up;
- Allows users to set appointments to learn more about products – for example to schedule a sample trial for a new make-up line, book an appointment to try on a wedding dress, book a test drive or make a reservation.
Compass provides a highly interactive consumer experience. A Compass ad – viewed on either an iPad, Smartphone, or laptop – first appears as a standard digital or mobile display ad. But unlike standard ads, at launch it pulls in location-specific data about the advertiser, providing key information to the viewer about the brand as it relates to that user’s proximity.
Once the customer selects the ad, it expands into a full-screen, app-like experience that clearly shows the nearby locations, which are either physical store locations for a retailer or locations where a product is sold. Additionally, Compass will inform a consumer if a particular product is in-stock at a specific location. Consumers can take it one step further by performing one of the following: contact the store, retrieve driving directions, or find out more information. The latter option allows advertisers to create customized tabs so the users can interact and learn about their brand through video, promotions and product demonstrations.
Compass Geo App-in-an-Ad technology provides a highly interactive experience typically only available by deeply integrating with an individual publisher or mobile app. Most popular location-based apps have less than 2 million monthly users, which limits the scale of the marketing campaign. By recreating that app experience in an ad unit, Compass can run anywhere with JiWire’s public Wi-Fi and mobile app location media channel, reaching an audience of more than 40 million monthly uniques.
With the proliferation of devices, this audience has connected to JiWire’s media channel with more than 160 million unique devices in the last year. The combination of Compass’ capabilities with JiWire’s national footprint enables brands to apply effective location-based advertising across a broad area, engaging a much bigger audience, from five miles out all the way down to the storefront.
“The digital world and the physical word are merging, which is driving the birth of location media,” said Kevin McKenzie, founder of JiWire. “Consumers are demanding location content and our advertising partners are adopting new ways to locationize their brands. In fact, we have closed seven-figure deals with Fortune 100 companies who understand how relevant location-based advertising is today. Compass is delivering on the next evolution of how this industry is going to monetize location-based advertising.”
Compass allows all brands to be locally relevant, including the 75% of the Fortune 500 brands without their own storefronts. It allows them to highlight where their product is available nearby in any store, even providing real-time location details on in-stock inventory down to the product skew. As in stock changes in real time, the brands ad changes in real time too. In effect, Compass combines location-based advertising across iPads, smartphones and laptops with brand specific local search, display, and video all-in-one and centered on the consumer’s location.
With Compass, brands now have the opportunity to extend impulse buying from the storefront to the entire neighborhood with the largest location-based media platform. Companies with and without storefronts that will want to use Compass’ unique solution include banks, business copy and shipping centers, auto dealers, retail outlets, nationwide electronics stores and consumer packaged goods.
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