May 10, 2012
Customers love O2 more: the program reaches 10 Million users
The O2 More program, powered by Placecast’s ShopAlerts, gets more love from its customers as the program reaches its “10 million customer” milestone. This is no small feat, considering that the program was at 6 million customers just a few months ago! The program has been live for 2.5 years.
May 3, 2012
Nearly 40% of U.S. Adult Mobile Phone Owners Say Making Purchases via their Device is Important, as Phone is Seen Increasingly as a Commerce Tool
Placecast publishes results from the third wave of a series of polls conducted by Harris on behalf of Placecast called “The Alert Shopper” Series. The study reveals that 20% of all adult mobile phone users in the U.S. purchase using their mobile phones – a number that increases to 34% when looking at just smartphone users. This number has been steadily rising (8 percentage points in the past 2 yeas) as smartphones become more ubiquitous. People are doing more than just purchasing using their phones – they are using GPS/mapping devices to find retail locations and visiting retailer websites, etc., which revels a growing trend of mobile devices being used for commerce overall.
April 25, 2012
The old adage “Location, location, location” has a whole new meaning; Mobile users worldwide demand more location-based services
With smartphone adoption and usage on the rise, the demand for location-based services is significantly increasing worldwide. According to a new report by TNS, location is the most sought after service by mobile users; a fifth of the world’s 6 billion population is already using mobile and over 60 percent of those that don’t use location yet, want to start using it.
January 20, 2012
Text Tops Smartphone Usage, While Check-Ins Decline
Insight Express released the latest update to its quarterly Digital Consumer Portrait which reveals some very interesting observations on the mobile behavior of mainstream smartphone users. As Kathryn Koegel pointed out in her AdAge column yesterday, “…there is an overwhelming counter-intuitive trend emerging from the data: some advanced mobile behaviors are not on an ever-increasing trajectory.” Specifically, that text continues to top the charts for usage, while novelty behavior like check-ins are in decline.
January 12, 2012
Hyperlocal Becoming a Reality
Hyperlocal is defined by place and time – and these same factors are the key to relevance for much of the mobile experience. When it comes to content and marketing on the mobile phone, where someone is and when they are there is highly predictive of what a consumer will be interested in. Now with the advent of opt-in geofences and other location-based techniques, merchants can deliver hyper-relevant marketing tailored to an individual in real time within a neighborhood or even a few blocks, not just at the metro level. For local businesses, this means that they finally have a method for reaching consumers nearby who are in a mindset to make a purchase.
December 6, 2011
Placecast and DDR Launch ValuText Alerts
DDR (NYSE: DDR) announced the launch of ValuText, a location-based mobile marketing service. Consumers who visit shopping centers owned by DDR will receive text messages offering deals from any one of the hundreds of retailers in each of those malls. ValuText is the brainchild of Denver-based Cohn Marketing and is a unique program that couples physical retail assets with state-of-the-art, location-based mobile marketing. Placecast’s technology platform powers the program, which sends offers to opted-in shoppers once they are located within geofences around the shopping centers.
November 29, 2011
Placecast Expands Partnership with Telefonica’s O2 to Ireland
Through a partnership with Placecast, O2 has become the first operator in Ireland to offer large-scale location-based mobile marketing services. The service enables brands to deliver relevant promotional text and picture messages to opted-in consumers in a more targeted, engaging, and effective way than ever before. O2 is using Placecast’s ShopAlerts platform to reach their subscribers. More than 6 million subscribers are already actively using the O2 program in the UK.
September 28, 2011
Placecast Nabs Win at First Ever AdAge Brand Hack in San Francisco
Last week AdAge hosted its first-ever “brand hack”, and San Francisco-based startup Placecast tied for the win in the mobile competition. With six startups vying for a prize from the Ignited agency, Placecast tied for top honors with Dwolla. Other competitors were Sonar, Goldrun, Banjo and Stampt. The win for Placecast cements the company’s position as a leader in location-based mobile marketing.
The brand hack was part of Ad Age Digital West, a one-day event in San Francisco. The point of the hack was to introduce startups to brand marketers and CMOs. According to AdAge, the winner of the mobile hack “will have the opportunity to work with digital agency Ignited to bring its technology to brands.”
September 13, 2011
Anne Bezancon’s op-ed about “Identity Property” in Forbes today
Anne Bezancon, Placecast’s founder, shares thoughts on geolocation privacy controls and regulation, and the use of personal information in location-based services
Read the full piece here: The Net As A Human Right; Claiming Our ‘Identity Property’
August 23, 2011
Placecast Launches Location-Based Push Notifications – A New Feature to Help Retailers Drive Engagement with Apps
Yesterday we announced that our ShopAlerts platform can now be integrated with any smartphone app to offer shoppers location-based push notifications when a consumer is near a store and the app is not on. ShopAlerts is a service that delivers real-time notifications based on geofences about deals, offers, and events in the shopper’s immediate area to any phone. With the new feature, retailers deploying apps can encourage consumers to use their app, visit a nearby store or event, and generate higher engagement around offers and specials – bringing consumers “back to the app”.
