Target

Everything has changed permanently toward mobile, and we’re never going back.

That has triggered a growing wave of mobile advertising that continues to gain in strength. Global mobile ad revenue increased from $5.3 billion in 2011 to $8.9 billion in 2012.

Personalization and tagging are prominent. And people are easily annoyed when they get communications, even from companies with which they’ve opted in, that don’t speak to their interests.

This summary of the current state of being comes courtesy of Joe Fuster senior vice president of SAP (News - Alert) Cloud sales, who suggests there is a better way to reach out to and engage customers with mobile advertising and offers. SAP calls it Precision Retailing. This is SAP’s term for using geofencing and other triggers, and its own HANA application and database platform, to better target campaigns at mobile users.

Videotape kiosk company Redbox is among the adopters of this new approach to mobile marketing and advertising. It started using SAP solutions to help with supply chain challenges but has since expanded its usage of the solution to better understand customer behaviors.

Fuster notes that Redbox may locate its machines in various locations around a city. But just because a customer rents a movie from one site doesn’t mean he or she will return it to the same location, he says, or rent from the same place next time around. However, Redbox does know that most people are consistent in returning movies to the same location, so the company has a pretty good idea of where those individuals are at a given time of day – perhaps returning a movie on the way to work in the morning. So that information can be used to formulate mobile ad campaigns with area businesses. And, when a customer returns a movie, that action can trigger the delivery of a coupon for breakfast at an area coffee spot, for example, or a promotion at a nearby drug store, or a deal on the next movie rental.

SAP is also working with STM, which operates the rail line in Montreal. STM uses the SAP solution to track when riders flash their badges at a entrance kiosk, which also provides information about where those riders are getting off the train. Understanding from which stations riders arrive and depart the trains enables STM and its partners to create promotions based on rider’s individual locations and schedules.