January 2012
2 posts
Text Tops Smartphone Usage, While Check-Ins...
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.”...
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...
December 2011
1 post
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,...
November 2011
1 post
Placecast Expands Partnership with Telefonica's O2...
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...
September 2011
2 posts
Placecast Nabs Win at First Ever AdAge Brand Hack...
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.
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Anne Bezancon's op-ed about "Identity Property" in...
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 2011
1 post
Placecast Launches Location-Based Push...
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...
July 2011
1 post
ShopAlerts Self-Service Launches Today Enabling...
Today we announced the release of ShopAlerts Self-Service, a simple tool that can be deployed by our partners and used by any business – from sole proprietors to large retail chains – to create and run their own ShopAlerts programs. Building on all our experience running ShopAlerts programs for the past two years, we’ve simplified the management of campaigns so that programs can be up and running...
June 2011
2 posts
Placecast selected as one of OnMobile's Top 100...
AlwaysOn recently announced their selections for the 100 top private companies that are creating a compelling, connected, and exciting mobile world. Placecast was selected as one of the Top 100, in the category of Mobile Advertising.
Placecast was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team, along with partners at Morgan Stanley, DCM, KPMG, Hewlett-Packard, Blackstone Group, Bridge Bank, Norwest...
Placecast's Innovation Recognized by Forrester...
Today Placecast got a mention for innovation in location-based services by Forrester analyst Thomas Husson. On the Forrester blog, Husson wrote an article titled ‘Mobile Is Bridging The Digital And Physical Worlds: It Is Time To Invent New Product And Services’ and noted Placecast’s relationships with operators, which bring location-based mobile ads to a mass audience. Husson...
May 2011
2 posts
Placecast Founder Invited to eG8 Forum
Placecast Founder and President Anne Bezancon has been invited to attend the eG8 Forum, which is hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and is part of the G8 Summit. Anne will offer her insights on the evolution of the internet and digital media. She joins other notables like Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Jeffrey Bezos, and Rupert Murdoch in attending this important event.
This eG8 Forum...
Placecast on CNET/CBS News: Opt-in and...
In this CNET/CBS News interview, Placecast CEO Alistair Goodman talks about the importance of consumer choice and protecting privacy when delivering mobile marketing messages. “We use the location provided by the carrier networks to be able to deliver you a message when you’re nearby something that’s interesting… In the case of our ShopAlerts programs, consumers double opt-in,...
March 2011
3 posts
Placecast Does SXSW, Talks Geofencing with...
Placecast CEO Alistair Goodman presented a well-attended session at South by Southwest (SXSW) titled “Building Fences in the Sky”. In this interview with WebProNews, Placecast talks about geofencing, the success of the company’s ShopAlerts platform, partnerships with AT&T and O2, mobile deals and how to achieve scale, and the growth and future of LBS:
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Placecast at CTIA
Mobile Commerce Daily posted an interesting wrap-up of the “Hit the Target: Location-Based Advertising” panel that Placecast participated in yesterday at CTIA Wireless 2011.
The surge of interest in moving beyond apps and tapping into scalable, location-based deals and offers via SMS has been tremendous, and the ShopAlerts programs we’ve been running with retailers such as The North...
Anne Bezancon on ShopAlerts - in French
In this recent video interview made in Paris (and therefore in French), Placecast Founder Anne Bezançon talks about location-based mobile marketing and ShopAlerts. Central to this new form of marketing is the need for consumer opt-in and the idea that “offers find you” automatically. The video also dives deeper into what the future of geolocation marketing will be.
Dans cette...
February 2011
1 post
AT&T & Placecast: ShopAlerts Goes Mainstream in...
Today we are announcing our partnership with AT&T, one of the largest and most innovative carriers in the United States. ShopAlerts by AT&T are special offers delivered to consumers via their mobile phones when they are near participating stores or brands. To start, the unique location-based mobile messaging service will be available for pilot groups of AT&T customers in New York,...
January 2011
1 post
Geo-Fence Marketing in the UK
Over the past week, our partner O2 has announced that two of the UK’s top retail brands have launched geo-fence marketing programs. Marks & Spencer, with more than 700 stores in the UK, and luxury retailer House of Fraser have both activated programs using the Placecast platform to promote January sales. These top UK retailers join brands like Starbucks and L’Oreal in using...
December 2010
4 posts
How Location-Based Services Can Boost Your Small...
Via Huffington Post: Our tactics for SMBs in navigating location-based services to increase traffic, grow revenue, and build loyalty
How Location-Based Services Can Boost Your Small Business
Vote for Placecast - TechCrunch's Crunchie Awards!
You can help Placecast win a Crunchie! Crunchies are annual awards from TechCrunch, one of the best tech publications that’s read around the world. Here’s the link: http://crunchies2010.techcrunch.com/nominate/ Please nominate Placecast as “Best Location Based Service” and also nominate our product “ShopAlerts by Placecast” for “Best New Startup Or Product...
The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Vanity Apps
This week, Mobithinking.com published a comprehensive look into what they’ve called the “false economy” created by the hype around vanity apps, their real-world benefit, and the actual ROI they provide given the highly specific and segmented audience (iPhone users only), limited downloads, and minimal use thereafter. For these same reasons, Placecast has chosen to focus on SMS...
Ever-Increasing Mobile Usage as 2010 Wraps
More and more consumers are using their mobile phones to send texts, according to a new comScore report – now 68.1% of all mobile subscribers are texting, a 2.1% change in just a three-month time period. As we expect that number to continue to grow, using SMS for location-based mobile marketing continues to gain traction as the most effective way to reach consumers at scale. We’re definitely...
November 2010
1 post
Congratulations, Starbucks!
Today, Starbucks was named 2010 Mobile Marketer of the Year, and its use of Placecast’s location-based mobile platform was cited first as one of its top efforts at creating a comprehensive mobile strategy and building a robust database. Starbucks was one of the first brands to utilize O2 More, a program launched by O2 in the UK that allows brands to deliver targeted, relevant messages to...
October 2010
1 post
ShopAlerts Hits the UK
Today Placecast announces our largest deployment yet, reaching more than one million opted-in consumers in a location-based mobile marketing program. We’ve partnered with the UK carrier O2, one of the most innovative and largest carriers in the UK and owned by Telefonica, to use the Placecast platform to serve location-based SMS and MMS messages from Starbucks and L’Oreal, the first two of several...
September 2010
1 post
New! Placecast LocalBox™
Today Placecast previewed a new offering - LocalBox™ - which is currently in private beta. As the name implies, this location-in-a-box functionality is a white-label toolset for OEM’s carriers and app developer communities to deploy location-based offerings at scale without writing any new code. You can watch a demo of LocalBox here:
The key pieces of location functionality include local...
August 2010
3 posts
Location, Permission, and Receptivity
The San Jose Business Journal’s recent “unscientific” study reported that significant number of their readers weren’t receptive to location-based mobile ads when the sharing of their location wasn’t voluntary. About 39% of readers “hate it,” and others prefer to be “off the radar” altogether, voicing concerns about privacy and sharing personal information without their explicit permission....
eMarketer: Targeting Parents with Mobile Alerts
Last week, eMarketer presented a comprehensive look at our data related to the rising interest in mobile marketing offers among parents, and concluded that “While the mobile market will be shifting toward more sophisticated forms of advertising as smartphone penetration increases, with feature phones currently in the hands of 69% of US subscribers, according to Nielsen, SMS campaigns still...
Mobile Marketing Gains More Traction with Busy...
Following up on our recent webinar on location and mobile marketing, we released part two of our findings with Harris Interactive this week. Not surprisingly, receptivity to location-based mobile communications is scaling quickly when this type of marketing appropriated for usefulness, convenience, and relevance—most notably with consumers for whom time and resources are at a premium: parents.
...
July 2010
3 posts
How Mobile Text Alerts and Location Affect...
Placecast teamed up with Mobile Marketer this week to present How Mobile Text Alerts and Location Affect Consumer Retail Behavior, a webinar outlining our findings from the research we conducted with the Harris Poll and directly with participants in ShopAlerts programs we created for REI, Sonic, The North Face, and American Eagle Outfitters. Following up on our recent press release about our...
Internet Retailer: Mobile alerts get young women...
Internet Retailer’s article about Placecast’s research with Harris Interactive regarding the impact of location-based mobile marketing…
“Location-based mobile alerts have led a third of women 18 to 34 to visit a store, according to a recent survey. And 27% of that demographic said that mobile messages have impacted their decision to buy in a physical store.
The poll,...
The Alert Shopper II: New Harris Interactive Data...
Today Placecast announced the release of our second wave of research conducted by Harris Interactive that dives deeper into consumer receptivity to opt-in mobile marketing and the potential impact for retailers. Overall, consumer receptivity to opt-in mobile marketing is growing, as is its ability to increase intent to visit stores. One-third of Americans who currently have signed up for mobile...
June 2010
2 posts
Location and the Local Ad Market Opportunity
As check-in and other location apps and services get a lot of press, once again the possibility of successfully tapping the $23 billion local ad market using mobile is becoming a very real opportunity. Location is emerging as the key to relevance on mobile, but as both consumers and small businesses are finding, location relevance at scale is much more difficult than a simple click to check in....
Location Silos and Open Databases of Places: The...
The tech trades are beginning to fill with treatises and musings on the topic of location data. From the emerging silos between location data providers (Location 2012: Death Of The Information Silos) to calls for an Open Database of Places, what’s clear is that making the mobile experience relevant for where a consumer is and when they are there is vastly more difficult than just getting a GPS fix...
May 2010
1 post
Placecast’s ShopAlerts Picks Up Fifth Award...
Placecast is excited to announce that the company has been named a Webby Award Official Honoree. The 14th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. The Webby Awards are considered the Internet’s most respected symbol of success. As an Honoree in the “Best Use of GPS or Location Technology” category, Placecast remains a leader in...
April 2010
2 posts
Research Report: Retail Goes Mobile
Today, we announced the release of a report titled “Retail Goes Mobile: Finding New Consumer Connections Through Mobile Devices” by Kathryn Koegel, President of Primary Impact Research. The report focuses on the latest research on mobile marketing within the retail sector.
This report reflects the next installment of our research, focused on helping marketers navigate the mobile landscape and...
Opening the Placecast Match API
Placecast has spent nearly five years building a platform that resolves the problems of delivering location-based programs at scale, and introducing ways to monetize them. Yesterday we opened up some of that functionality for free to the LBS ecosystem - our MatchAPI - in the hopes that everyone working on the challenges of location-based offerings can focus on generating revenue from...
March 2010
2 posts
Retail Goes Mobile: Finding New Consumer...
Today, Kathryn Koegel, President of Primary Impact Research, presented the latest research on mobile marketing within the retail sector. The webinar, hosted by Placecast, gives insights into purchase behavior, media consumption, and consumer receptivity to retailers currently leveraging the always-on mobile device. The session also includes a location-based mobile case study providing data and key...
“Retail Goes Mobile: Finding New Consumer...
Retailers are constantly looking for ways to leverage the unprecedented access they have through an always-on device and Placecast is proud to host Kathryn Koegel, President of Primary Impact Research, as she shares valuable perspectives on how marketers can increase brand loyalty and sales with innovative mobile solutions thought a webinar open to the public.
The webinar, entitled “Retail Goes...
January 2010
1 post
Placecast Announced as Global Mobile Awards...
Unless you have been living under a rock, you most likely know that the Mobile World Congress is happening in Barcelona next month. This congress is the forum for mobile leaders to gather, collaborate, conduct business and learn about the most cutting edge innovations of our industry. Placecast is honoured to be a part of this year’s event and we proudly announce that the SONICsignals™...
December 2009
2 posts
Placecast Webinar: “Innovations in Retail: Using...
On Tuesday December 15, Placecast hosted a webinar aimed at finding new approaches that are working for retailers to increase brand affinity and drive repeat traffic into their stores. Moderate by Janye O’Donnell, the retail reporter for USA Today and co-author of the book, Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-somethings are Revolutionizing Retail, the discussion provided insights for retail...
Final Installment of the Alert Shopper Series 6
Timed with the official kickoff of the retail industry’s most critical period and the climax of holiday season offerings, this week marks the wrap-up of our six-part investigative series.
With our Alert Shopper in-person interviews and third-party studies, we pioneered research in retail as it relates to understanding the role of mobile in commerce and mobile advertising. Over the last few...
November 2009
1 post
The Alert Shopper Series #5 - Teens and Mobile...
According to a new report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, mobile phone use has climbed steadily among teens. From 2004 to 2006, mobile phone use grew from 45% to 63%, and up to 71% in early 2008. Our Alert Shopper Series #5 examines this demographic.
Our in-person interviews provide insight into teen mobile usage, receptivity to message alerts and the increasingly important role the...
October 2009
3 posts
The Alert Shopper Series #4 - Men and Mobile
According to recent data released by Nielsen in 2009, close to 60 million consumers accessed the web via mobile devices in July 2009, up from 42.5 million last year. Specifically, the male mobile audience grew 26 percent of that period. Our Alert Shopper Series #4 examines this segment.
Interviews we conducted offer a window into male shopping habits, brand loyalty and how men research their...
CNBC Features Results from The Alert Shopper
Last week, CNBC did a story on mobile devices and shopping. It’s exciting to see much of the findings of our Harris survey included within this piece.
Click Here to read the full article.
The Alert Shopper #3 - Exclusive Harris...
Today we announced our study with Harris Interactive on Americans and location-based shopping.
The survey, which was conducted online from July 20 to July 22, 2009 among 2,029 adults ages 18 and older, measured consumer sentiment towards using mobile devices as it relates to shopping, sales promotions and impulse purchases.
Some of our key findings included:
Consumers are interested in receiving...
September 2009
1 post
The Alert Shopper Series 2 - Moms and Mobile...
There’s no question that moms are the primary decision maker when it comes to household purchases. Our Alert Shopper video series #2 examines this segment and is entitled “Moms and mobile marketing.” According to a DM News article, the mom is the most powerful consumer group in the U.S., comprising 75 million Americans with $2 trillion a year in spending power. That’s a lot...
August 2009
1 post
6 tags
The Alert Shopper
Today at Placecast we are proudly announcing a six-part study known as The Alert Shopper.
It’s our expectation that The Alert Shopper will pioneer research in retail as it relates to understanding the role of the mobile device in commerce, mobile advertising and coupons. There’s been a lot of talk and hype about location-based services but it’s time to hear from real people on...