2011 Rugby World Cup

The Rugby World Cup in Auckland is just over a year away and GeoSmart is looking forward to the opportunities that come with it. As New Zealand’s premier location-based services (Mapping) company there are many areas that we will be looking at. These include:

• Cartography. We produce many printed maps. These include map books for Wises and the NZ Automobile Association, as well as several travel atlas products for various organisations such as the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, which includes locations of Points of Interest of unique interest. We also produce custom maps for many organisations ranging from hotels to regional tourism organisations.
• Car Navigation. GeoSmart is the provider of map data and Points of Interest for the leading brands including Navman and TomTom. Many people coming from overseas will be able to use our map data to find the venues, accommodation, attractions, parking, bars and much more for the Rugby World Cup, making their trip stress free. We also now offer real time traffic to car navigation which would be great if you are trying to get to a venue close to kick off.
• Real Time Traffic. We built and manage the new AA Traffic service. This service provides information on traffic incidents that might interfere with people getting to the match on time.  We do this with a number of services including subscription alerts via Email and Text Messaging, which can be found on the AA Traffic website. Traffic is also shown on other AA websites, Roadwatch and AA Maps. Real Time Traffic is also of course available on your car navigation product such as with Navman.
• AA Maps website. This website is the perfect site for local and overseas travellers. A significant proportion of web traffic to AA’s websites come from overseas and this includes AA Maps. People are guided here with links from affiliated motoring associations around the world as well as people looking for services such as driving directions. This is a great site for people planning their routes, looking for other things to do while they are travelling, where to stay, where to eat and drink and where to have some fun and adventure.
• Mobile Applications / Location Based Services. We are working with several companies who are developing applications for smartphones such as iPhone and Android. When your mobile knows where it is, it becomes easy to use GeoSmart’s highly accurate data about New Zealand roads and points of interest to add value to people touring New Zealand following the rugby tournament.
• Web Mapping. Many companies use GeoSmart’s web mapping tools in their custom environments. Examples may be found on our home page. If you are looking to add maps, points of interest and turn by turn directions to your site, we would love to chat with you about how we can help.
• Carbon Friendly. This has become a very important topic and one that we are committed to supporting. We are able to support concepts such as Eco-Routing, in effect, finding the route that uses the least fuel and carbon waste. Our RAPIDcV has been continuing to drive all of New Zealand at around 15cm accuracy, not only getting an accurate road centreline but also measuring the road’s inclination and even the camber of corners on the road. This highly accurate data allows us to support organisations focused on sustainable eco friendly policies.
• Multi-modal routing. We have been developing solutions supporting the ability to guide people through various means of transport from foot to motorised. This includes situations where one trip might include different forms of transport. Rugby fans might use a combination. For example, they might drive to a carpark, then use public transport, finally walking from there to the match venue via restaurants and bars. Each transport medium has its own set of rules. For example a person walking, doesn’t need to worry about one-way streets and may be able to take advantage of short cuts through arcades etc, to get to their destination.

Whilst the Rugby World Cup may be over a year away, GeoSmart is working closely with our partners to assist them in achieving their goals, through the use of our data, web services and API’s and other products. If you would like more information, you will find our contact details here.

Proximity Based Marketing and the Location Innovation Awards

So what’s the big deal with Proximity Based Marketing? We have included this category in the Awards because it offers a huge opportunity for companies to engage with potential clients in a way that adds value to them. There are different ways of doing proximity marketing, our interest is specifically mobile and opt-in. That means that you only participate in a campaign if you chose to and in doing so there are some critical criteria. I will explain those, but first let’s get an idea of what the concept means, because a lot of people don’t really understand the concept.

Proximity based marketing is about getting messages, offers, invitations and communication about goods, services, activities based on where you are, i.e. they are availble close to where you happen to be. There are two main methods for doing this from a mobile persepctive, which is our interest in this competition. One is around targetted SMS messages, being the easiest technology to use currently and the other is Bluetooth. Unless there is an opt in component, Bluetooth is unlikely to be supported in this environment, but it could be. Bluetooth is really about short range communication between devices, say up to about 10 metres. It is a short range radio frequency concept that normally requires ‘pairing’ that is both devices agreeing that the other device is a trusted device to communicate with. So in most cases you can not communicate with another Bluetooth device unless A/ It is switched on (using a fair amount of battery power); and B/ It is open to communication with other devices in ‘Discoverable Mode‘ ; and C/ It has registered the other device as one it will communicate with. This is how you can have a Bluetooth headset for your phone and not listen in to calls that other people in the vicinity are making who are also using a Bluetooth headset. Free and open communications are not receommended because of the risk of virus attack.

So the concept, which according to BlueTomorrow is ‘all the rage’ of Bluetooth Proximity Marketing means that you have no control over who sends you messages. You may think that’s a good thing, but the last thing I want as I walk past shops in the mall is to receive unsolicited messages asking me if I would like information or perhaps  an electronic coupon for products which are in the store. If they have deals, let them put some good material in the shop window.

Another concept which also isn’t in the scope of the competition is applications that require you to do something based on a billboard or other Point of Sale. In effect they didn’t contact you, but they persuaded you to do something when you happened to be somewhere. An excellent example is the UN Voices project put together by The Hyperfactory, who are a worldwide expert company in wireless and mobile marketing in Australia. The concept was that you take a digital photo of a mouth on a billboard and then get sent an audio message of the person who’s photo you took, telling you about their lives. This and other great examples of their work which are very inspiring can be seen here.

So the concept we are talking about goes like this. Through a form of marketiong, you convince people to opt in to a service, it could be via a brochure, a message on product packaging or on a label, or perhaps through a website or billboard. You will allow the service to send you messages based on your interests in products or services, which will probably be SMS or Text Messages. The messages might contain an offer, an electronic coupon, or ask you to do something.

To me the concept of being offered special deals for things that I am specifically interested in at a time that I would like to receive it is a great idea. For the marketing company if they can find willing subjects it is also great because it is targetted rather than the normal scattergun approaches. How much junk mail have you received in the recent build up to Christmas sales mostly about things you weren’t interested in? What would be the ad drop to sales conversion ratio. A very good DM (Direct Marketing) Campaign would get 5-10% return, the average would probably be less than 4%. If you know you can target people that are interested, you would get a significantly greater result.

The thing is, you don’t want SPAM solicited or not, so there need to be rules and if the rules aren’t followed, the entire industry could be set back for many years. So for the competition our rules are:

1. You must clearly understand what you are opting into.How many messages are you likely to receive.

2. You need to have control over when you will receive messages. For example for a ‘Happy Hour Club’ You might decide you only want to receive messages on Friday and Saturday nights and only between 6 and 10 PM.

3. From a proximity perspective you may only want to receive offers when you are within a km of a participating bar or club.

4. It needs to be easy and clear how to opt out. People might try something once in a while, but there are many services such as subscription newsletters where it is very difficult to figure out how to opt out of the service.

It’s interesting when you start searching for existing applications, how few actually exist so far, while the web is full of sites suggesting what could be done, most of the companies who could be doing it aren’t and wouldn’t know where to start, which is why this competition is so important. So here are a few ideas:

• BP Petrol stations in New Zealand sell coupon books which give you two-for-one deals on coffee. The sell car wash services with coupon books so that your 5th car wash is free. You have to go out of your way to get them and most of the time when you need them they are not around. They generally do not work very well in motivating people to use the service. Often there are competing gas stations accross the road and people have a choice where they go. At commuting times of day most traffic is driving one one side of the road, the gas station on the other side misses out. Why not add a service for people to opt into so that they can be offered special deals when they are in proximity of petrol stations at quiet times. It could be a free coffee with $60 worth of petrol, it could be a half price carwash etc. I don’t know too much about the petrol industry but people sure like a deal. Why not give them one when they are close by. Why not get them to top up their gas now, when they are near your business, especially if they weren’t planning to stop.
• Imagine you have signed up for your favourite retail clothing chain, given them your favourite colours, style and size. They know when you are walking into the mall, either because your phone has told them, or because you texted the name of the mall to the short code on the sign at the entrance. Now you get a text message saying that they have got something similar to what you loved last summer and if you come in now, you will get a 2nd garment for half price and you can forward this to 3 friends who will get the same deal.
• Still in the mall, you walk past the Music Store who send you a message saying that your favourite band’s new album has just been released and another group who is quite similar also have a great new album and if you come in and buy them both now, you will also get a free collector T-Shirt.
• How about renting a camervan or motorhome and subscribing to travel deals as you drive on your holiday. As you travel around the country, you get SMS alerts from attractions and activities within say 10km of your location. You drive into Waitomo to go on the boat trip the the underwater caves, but the day has been quiet for the Black Water Rafting Trip so they send you a special deal where the 2nd person goes for free. As you drive further towards the end of the day and are thinking about where to stay, you get a text message from the nearby Top 10 Holiday Park with an offer of a 20% disccount on your meal at the restaurant next door.

The key to this concept is that the offers are targetted and the recipient has control of when, how often and what type of deals they are offered and have the ability to stop them as quickly as sending a text message. You might subscribe indefinitely or just for the 5 day trip in your motorhome. In many cases these deals might also include aspects of other categories such as LBS Games or Social Networking. The key is that it targets you because you are interested in or a regular consumer of the goods and services, buit most importantly because you receive the deals when you are in the proximity of the offer, they are welcomed. You don’t want to receive an electronic coupon for a petrol discount if you are on the beach or out on the boat, you want it when you are driving past. You want something that is a really good deal.

Hopefully I have given you a few ideas for applications you might like to come up with for the competition. If you are not elligable or don’t want to participate, please feel free to share comments or ideas on this blog that other people might be able to pick up on.

Listen to Echoes from Woices – Ideas for the Location Innovation Awards

Have you registered for the Location Innovation Awards? It’s not too late.  The Location Innovati0n Awards don’t close until February 16.

Recently I came across a site that shows potential, but they are not yet using GPS or mobile. Nevertheless, their concept is very good. In simple terms Woices allows you to record comments on the net about places that you have been to, called ‘Echoes’. Using reverse geocoding you can tag the location to  a map so that people can go to a map and see the locations that have ‘Echoes’ and then listen to them.

From a Location Innovation Awards perspective, this would be a great concept to make mobile. Whether it’s through GPS or triangulation, it would be a simple thing to create an application that takes advantage of the mobile knowing it’s position, recording a voice message and a photo and then uplocaing it to a website.

The concept of a social community sharing information is becoming commonplace, but most of these applications are web based. This is fine when you are planning a trip, but could be much better if it was made more mobile.

When I travel overseas and am looking for accomodation or activities, I check them out on Travelocity. The reason I do this is because the public can upload comments. Last year I had a short holiday in jamaica and found this system very helpful. For example the first resort I looked up in Montego Bay looked great on the hotel’s website, but the comments said things like, “If you are single and want to party 24 hours a day, this place was made for you. Don’t bring your kids. ” Using people’s comments I found the perfect resort and it was exactly what the comments said it would be and I was very happy with my selection.

Mobility means you can do much more. For example let’s say you are in Rotorua and looking for somewhere to have a brunch. Using your mobile you could search for cafe’s or restaurants within a kilometer of where you are and listen to the ‘Echoes’ other people had left. For example “great food but it took an hour to get it to the table’.

From a tourism perspective, sharing information that you can access from your phone could be great. I was talking to someone recently who went on a motorhome tour of New Zealand and they told me that some of the best places they stopped for the night weren’t marked on any maps, they found out about them from other motorhomers who told them where to find spots where they could park by the water and enjoy wonderful sunsets. A GPS mobile application could allow you to locate all sorts of interesting places based on the recommendations of others.

Voice messages like this can be in multiple languages and would allow you to enjoy high tech results without requiring you to have computing skills  or sophisticated technology. In addition to info from fellow travellers, this is also a great opportunity for locals to share information with travellers about local history, amenities and attractions and people have already started doing this on Woices.

A concept like this in a mobile environment would fit into several categories of the Location Innovation Awards, including the best Tourism Application and the AA Maps Widgets which could earn you a luxury adventure in a Maui Camper.