Between 4 May and 11 June, O2 customers within 0.5 miles of a Co-Operative Food shop will receive a text message offering them a free 500ml bottle of Dr Pepper. All customers will have opted in to O2 More, one of the industry’s largest permission-based marketing schemes with over two million members.
Unlike other location-based services which require customers to log-in to retrieve deals and offers, O2’s You are Here service drives value and consideration for brands by pushing messages to target, opted-in customers in specific areas. It is also completely handset agnostic meaning that any customer can benefit from the offer regardless of whether or not they have a smartphone.
You are Here uses ‘geo-fences’ which are set up around a particular location, in this case a Co-Operative food shop. As soon as a target customer enters the area marked by the ‘geo fence’ they automatically receive a SMS or MMS with the offer. They then simply show the message at the till in the nearest store to redeem the deal.
“People have been talking about location based targeting for years,” said Shaun Gregory, MD of O2 Media. “We’ve pioneered the capability, delivering a seamless solution across all handsets to opted-in customers who are active participants of our services. You are Here is truly unique, primarily because it drives consideration and incremental value in a market where most browsing-based solutions actually erode sales and essentially deliver offers to customers who have already made a purchase decision.
“Most major retailers in the UK are using You are Here and leveraging what location based solutions can deliver. It’s a whole new ball game for marketers as they start to realise that they can talk to customers when they are moments away from their stores. It’s not just about effectiveness and ROI, it’s also about the fact that brands need to be more relevant in such a cluttered world. Mobile delivers that, and it also makes other forms of media work harder. It’s changing the game,” Gregory continued.