Several big brands have signed on to a new mobile marketing program from Rogers that takes advantage of a consumer’s location.
Sears, A&W, Future Shop and Pizza Hut Canada are among the first brands to advertise via Rogers Alerts, a text message based initiative the company launched Wednesday. Rogers mobile customers who opt-in to the service will be sent text message offers based on their location.
For example, a customer walking by a Sears store may receive a text offering 50% off a Jessica brand dress available in the store. The service relies on geo-fencing, a kind of virtual perimeter that can be applied to a physical location, set only to send marketing messages when consumers are in close proximity to a store.
The size of the geo-fence will vary based on the advertiser, according to Jack Tomik, chief sales officer at Rogers Media. For a large retailer like Sears, the geo-fence may extend to the highway near a shopping mall, while the geo-fence for a Second Cup, another brand signed on to the program, may only be one or two city blocks.
Subscribers will only receive ads in categories they sign up for, such as food or auto. The idea is to make the offers as targeted as possible, said Tomik, adding that in the future Rogers may also target by age, gender and other data, such as offers a consumer has previously purchased.
Rogers and its U.S.-based technology partner Placecast has been experimenting with geo-fencing technology for four years but had problems with either how well the system worked or the filters that dictate how many messages a consumer receives, said Tomik. Rogers Alerts will send a maximum of four text message offers a week to avoid consumers viewing the offers as spam.
Tomik said Rogers has been watching closely as brands like Pet Smart and Fitness First Gyms launched similar initiatives over the past six months. In the U.S. 28% of consumers who received a geo-targeted offer from Pet Smart made a purchase, he said.
Rather than package the product as an app, Tomik said Rogers decided to focus on text messages because of the format’s simplicity. “It’s simple, easy and straight forward. It’s something you don’t have to download an app for. There’s no muss and fuss,” he said.
Because it does not require an app, it will be available to all mobile subscribers, not just those who own smartphones.
