Google, GPS and Location Marketing
I use Google Maps on my Blackberry. When I log on, it shows me my location wherever I am within about 1700 feet, I am told. This is cool. I needed to find an intersection last Sunday. I pulled out my Blackberry, clicked on the Google Maps icon and within 3 seconds there was a little blue beacon blinking on a map of a location somewhere outside of Charlotte. Yep that's where I am. I zoomed out on the little map and WHAM! there was my answer. Don't turn here, go another intersection further south. Wow. Blackberry and Google really helped me out while I felt totally lost.
Then I saw an electronic billboard about 75 feet up in the air, as I zoomed by, that I swear was a Blackberry ad with a Google Maps example on the screen. WHat?!? You have to be kidding me. No way. I started to slow down, bite my lip and wonder if I needed to turn around for a second look. Did it also say my name?
Point here is we are experiencing convergent marketing where this stuff, whether I saw it or not, is becoming more of a reality.
Location-based, personal advertising is not out of the realm of now. Would it be difficult for my cell phone/mobile data provider to signal the server powering that billboard after it received a signal from my blackberry? While I am in eye shot of that billboard, is it inconceivable that it could send a 3 second message from a company that I looked up on Google from my blackberry the hour before?
How well do they know me?
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Uhh, Todd, you pretty much are off the grid. You barely have a cell phone and have no cable!
That's it!
I'm going off the grid.
Google + Maps + GPS + Doubleclick + electronic billboards + mobile carriers = crazy location marketing.
Not only do they know where you are, they know what products you've looked up on the internet. The type of advertising you describe will most certainly come about in the very near future.
When I was in NYC on Monday, I took a car service to my sister's office. On the way into the city from Brooklyn I realized the driver did not know where he was going. It was his second week on the job. I had to give the driver instructions. It's been years since I lived in NYC and even then, I did not go from Park Slope to the Wall Street area by cab very often. I Google Mapped it on my Trio to give him directions. Why is it I had the technology to solve this problem and he didn't?
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