Smart phones have changed how we market to consumers on the go.
It was great having Miles Kirkpatrick around on Thursday September 21, 2011. Miles, an alumnus of Tippie, was the guest speaker at the Marketing Academy lunch session. One new word I took away from the session was “SoLoMo”. SoLoMo stands for Social Local Mobile. The multiplicity and usage of smart mobile devices has made it possible target consumers on their smart mobile devices with advertisements of products and services in proximity to them. Imagine an advert with the caption, “You are only 1 mile away from the biggest sales event in town. Take the next exit”? According to Miles, new insights into consumer behaviors, as it relates to the usage of smart mobile devices, have made SoLoMo important to marketers.
SoLoMo is enabled by a new technology referred to as geofencing. This technology makes it possible for smart mobile devices within a virtually fenced off geographic location to receive automatic alerts when entering or leaving the area. This makes it possible to send targeted advertisements to consumers when they are within these virtual geo fences.
Location apps such as Foursquare and SCVNGR are using this technology. Expectedly, there are privacy concerns, as some perceive SoLoMo based marketing to be intrusive. While waiting for the jury to come back on this, won’t it be cool to use geofence-based apps like Foursquare to “check in” into classes, like Marketing, that attendance is taken? Hmm, I think I need to speak with Pomerantz Center’s “foursquare mayor”.
