MANILA, AUGUST 30, 2013 – Telco giants Smart Communications and Globe Telecoms are poised to begin beta-testing location-based marketing technology, opening up new mobile marketing opportunities in a country with arguably the fastest-rising smartphone growth rates in Southeast Asia.
Smart’s head of digital, Leah Besa-Jimenez, said the carrier would beta test its street-level geo-fencing offer to provide tailored ads, promotions and deals to its opt-in customer base in the next month.
Globe is also beta-testing location-based services (LBS), as revealed by its digital and mobile advertising head Bela Gupta D’Souza at the IMMAP Summit Thursday. Globe sealed a deal earlier this year with Polaris Wireless of the US for its OmniLocate technology and refresh its location-based capability. Globe’s is the fourth OmniLocate deployment in Asia Pacific.
“With the LBS platform, subscribers don’t need a special device or smartphone to enjoy services such as Friend Finder or Establishment Finder. This allows us to enrich subscriber experience with more location-enabled value-added services that are available on our modernized 2G and 3G network and new LTE network,” Joanne Perez, Globe’s product manager for enabling platforms had earlier said of the deal.
Besa-Jimenez revealed at the same summit that Smart’s beta-testing would involve a number of Top 10 advertisers and their creative and media agencies.
The next phase would be to bring the service indoors. To this end, Smart has been in discussion for a beta test with major mall, which has itself “tested some semblance” of location-based technology.
Smart was also exploring a variety of technologies to bring its street-level geo-fencing offer within malls. Besa-Jimenez said the operator was cognizant of privacy issues and would limit the service to its opt-in database.
“We are at the infancy of mobile marketing which is not at the level it should be given the reach it has. As an operator, we are providing solutions for this,” Besa-Jimenez said, noting the geo-fencing would be part of Smart’s growing inventory of ad units.
She said the operators had done their part of provide the services and infrastructure, eliminating the need for clients and agencies to develop bespoke, invariably expensive, solutions, a move she hoped would spur mobile marketing in the country.
