So few Location-Based Marketing platforms have been built for real-world applications.

As location-based applications from Foursquare, Facebook, Google and others have gained attention, most locations have been somewhat frustrated by how much effort is needed to embrace these platforms.

Limited functionality and/or complexity has thus far led to results that have not lived up to the red hot hype. For example, it is really difficult to create messages and/or deals for multiple locations without having to go into each location’s account - which can be too time consuming for larger retail groups. And in a business where 15 minutes spent on a website is 15 minutes not spent stocking shelves or hiring a waiter, simplicity and RoI count for more than “cool.”

So it’s good news that this week saw both Foursquare and Facebook update their interfaces for merchants.

Foursquare has been on a roll - raising $50 million, partnering with AMEX for deals, and this week, opening up their API for locations to be able to create their own deals via any platform (LocaModa for example - shameless plug). So now venues can use one interface (LocaModa for example - another shameless plug) - to create/edit/monitor their offers. More info via Foursquare here.

Facebook updated Facebook Pages with a Location feature and introduced a Deals API. The new Facebook Locations tab displays the “parent/child” relationship of claimed Facebook Places locations in one place. This means that large groups of stores (Parents) can change all their pages in one interface while still enabling a single store (child) to control their own messaging. More info via Facebook here.

This is all welcome news BUT it’s still likely that for the foreseeable future, brands and location owners won’t quite know what to put on their location pages or Facebook walls. The experience greeting many users may therefore still be rather underwhelming at best. A blank wall at worst.

(Drum roll) THAT’S AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DOOH.

We know how much time and effort has been spent on creating local content and information for screens in the locations - menus in cafes, announcements in health-clubs, deals in stores etc. This content can now more easily flow back to Foursquare and Facebook - as well as enabling any content created on those platforms finding its way to the location signage.

From a DOOH perspective, I like to say that screens need to have a range of miles, not feet. With a screen connected to Facebook or Foursquare (or Twitter et al), a screen can reach many more people and be more contextually interesting to the local audience, an on-line audience and advertisers. And connected DOOH screens are ever more measurable via the interactions of these audiences.

Thinking about a “Build or Buy” decision for a DOOH-ready social-media platform? It should more obvious than ever that this is a full time business with API changes from social media companies happening almost in real time - and in order to monetize the technology, the solution not only needs to be robust, extensible and scalable, but also needs to be network agnostic to attract brands who need to be wherever their target audience is.

As locations join the social graph, their technologies - not least the screens hanging on their walls - simply have to become more socially connected.

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A client just sent us their creative for a call to action on a forthcoming LocaModa campaign. Without giving away any names or clues, their call to action was something like “Text AYT9Q31628ZB for a chance to win…” To make matters worse - this CTA is to be displayed for 8 seconds.

Coincidently, at the same time as people here were pulling their hair out and trying to jump off ledges, I was reading this line in a blog post “Anybody who has looked at their customer acquisition funnel knows how even minor usability problems can drive away vast swaths of people.”

Sometimes I want to shoot myself in the head. It usually happens around the time a client is shooting themselves in the foot.

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Here are a couple more slides and notes from my recent presentations for ScreenMediaExpo in London (you can get the full presentation here) and NgageWithUs in Sidney, Melbourne and Auckland.

Fig.1. DISCOVERY IS INTENT OR CONTEXT. (Click to enlarge)

PRIVATE SCREENS: DISCOVERY VIA INTENT

Private screens (e.g. a user’s desktop or laptop) are best targeted by advertisers via an “Intent” model. i.e. a user’s intent is exposed via a search query (e.g. pizza near Natick, MA) or social media pages (e.g. Fan of Joe’s Pizza, Natick, MA). This is an eminently monetizable opportunity and advertisers can measure the effectiveness of what can then become a two-way link between the user and advertiser (shown as the 2-way red dotted line to/from advertisers in Fig.1.).

We know that the value of Intent via private screens is huge (just ask Google), but the value of “context” is still largely untapped on these screens.

If we now look at public screens, the oppose it true.

PUBLIC SCREENS: DISCOVERY VIA CONTEXT.

Unlike private screens, an advertiser can effectively get on to public screens just by paying for that privilege. In theory, they choose to do so based on the desirability of the target audience around those screens i.e. their context. For example it might be determined that people potentially interested in pizza could be found at gas stations within 1 mile of the pizza restaurant around lunch or dinner time.

The value of this context is OK, but is typically a one way (i.e. passive) message from an advertiser to the public screen (shown as the one-way blue dotted line to the public screens in Fig.1.) with no direct engagement path to the audience, in other words, this approach lacks the actionable, two way connection that’s inherent in the Intent model. It’s also less measurable or immediate, and therefore, from the perspective of a digital media buyer, potentially less valuable.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could leverage the advantages of both the Intent and Context models in one hybrid approach? Of course that’s a soft-ball question addressed in the slide below.

FIG. 2. MOBILE BRIDGES INTENT AND CONTEXT. (Click to enlarge)

MOBILE SCREENS: DISCOVERY VIA INTENT AND CONTEXT

An out of home audience is mobile. Their mobile behavior moves between Intent and Context models all the time. And the mobile phone, because it’s always on and available, can support both Intent and Context models. For example the user might want to find a pizza restaurant near by and type that into their phone’s browser (i.e. Intent Model shown as the 2-way red dotted line to/from the phone and advertiser in Fig. 2). They might also act on a promotion they discover at the gas station near the pizza restaurant or respond to a poll, check in, or send a message when they are at the restaurant (i.e. Context Model shown as the 2-way blue dotted line to/from the phone and advertiser in Fig. 2).

The mobile phone is providing a “mobile click” to an otherwise passive public screen.

As our ability to leverage all screens is better understood, and the friction of doing so is reduced, the entire eco-system will benefit - i.e. locations, advertisers, network operators and end users will each get a more valuable experience.

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