ASIA-PACIFIC – NOVEMBER 2, 2011: Navigating, tracking, checking in and geo-tagging are now part of the marketer’s vocabulary. As location based services (LBS) grow, brands are increasingly using them in various ways to grow their business. adobo magazine asked Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific about LBS in the region following the release of MMA’s white paper, “Mobile Location Based Services Marketing”.
Aside from Japan and Korea, where is LBS growing significantly in Asia?
Japan and South Korea are by far the most developed location based services markets accounting for nearly 92% of the total revenues in Asia-Pacific. This is largely attributable to the advanced data market in both countries and the existence of a mobile eco-system – a perfect environment for application developers and content providers.
Other than Japan and Korea, China is another country in Asia that has potential for growth of LBS. TechNavio’s analysts forecast that Chinese Location Based Services market will reach $218.0 million in 2014, and one of the key factors contributing to this market growth is increasing demand for 3G technology.
What are the kinds of LBS?
Broadly, LBS can be split into four categories. These define the various ways that businesses can work with LBS players to reach out to their target audience.
1. Business to Business (B2B): These include location-based enterprise applications like fleet/asset management or courier tracking services.
2. Consumer to Business (C2B): These are proximity-based services that consumers access when they need them. Examples would be a user being able to locate a close by hospital during an emergency or a nearby restaurant or movie theatre for a night out.
3. Business to Consumer (B2C): These include proximity-based, targeted advertisements, discounts, offers, coupons etc delivered to consumers at the right place and time. A common example used is that of a consumer walking past his favourite coffee shop and immediately receiving a coupon for a dollar off on a latte.
4. Consumer to Consumer (C2C): These include location-based social networking services that allow users to update their friends and contacts on their location or track the movements of their friends. Having a presence on location-based social networks can help businesses track their customers.
Many LBS today combine concepts from several of the types listed below. The examples below are described in terms of functionality. Many of them could, in fact, be realized via a variety of mobile media including downloadable applications, mobile web sites, messaging, or Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
1. Navigation: Provides driving, walking, or other directions; often “turn by turn”. Examples: Operator-branded navigation applications, Google Maps, Nokia’s Ovi Map.
2. Geo-fence Services:
a. Friend/family finder/tracker: Ability to locate other trusted users in real-time (i.e. friends or family, by consent), or see where they last “checked in”, be notified when they are nearby, receive periodic alerts or alerts based on position (i.e. geo-fence). Examples: Loopt, MyFriendGPS, AT&T FamilyMap, RunKeeper, and Trail Tracker (activity Tracking), Asset tracking.
b. Enterprise Fleet Tracking and Timecarding: Allows businesses to use employee and/or asset location for business purposes (i.e. verify asset is at the intended location). Example: Telenav.
3. Mapping, Travel and Point of Interest: View current location on a map relative to points of interest. Examples: WHERE, Snocator, MapQuest, Public Transportation Routes.
4. Geo-tagging: Uses location to provide additional context to a picture or message.
5. Location Sharing: Connect with nearby users who have chosen to share their profile publicly. Search profiles of other users based on preferences (i.e. distance, age, gender, interest/keywords, etc.) Examples: Foursquare, Facebook Connect.
6. Check-in Based Contest and Games: Reward the user (typically with discounts or coupons) for visiting retailer locations and “checking in”. LBS are used to verify that the user was at or near the retailer location when checking in.Examples: MyTown, Gowalla, Foursquare, Rummble.
7. Local Search: The defining characteristic of effective mobile local search is theability to match location with user–specified intent thus enabling the user to search and discover what is nearby. Examples: Poynt, WHERE, Yelp.
8. Local/Hyperlocal Content: A contextual experience based on a specific locale. For mobile local search, the user’s location and specified intent are the most significant components. Examples: Local weather conditions, local sports scores, in-store services.
In Asia, which publishers offer location data?
Some of the more popular location based service providers in Asia include MobGold, Jiepang, ShowNearby and Aura Interactive.
MobGold is a mobile advertising network and mobile transaction solutions company. They introduced Location Based Service (LBS) earlier this year, targeting the intended audiences of clients in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa.
Jiepang is a Chinese location-based social mobile application that helps friends share where they are offline and in real-time. By "checking in" with the application, users share that they’ve arrived at specific venues, as well as offer tips,photos and comments about those venues.
ShowNearby is a location-based service provider based in Singapore, serving information-seeking users, business owners and public agencies with timely and relevant points of interests across mobile and web platforms.
AURA Interactive is a mobile and interactive media solutions provider. AURA has gained global recognition as one of the pioneers of mobile LBS, interactive out-of-home media and m-commerce. It focuses on deploying mobile location-based advertising campaigns, interactive outdoor media solutions and interactive event-based promotions.
Are privacy concerns still keeping mobile users from adopting LBS?
GSMA recently announced the results of a study of more than 4,000 mobile phone users in Singapore, Spain and the UK, which shed light on privacy issues, particularly relating to the use of mobile Internet and mobile applications.
Key areas of user concern, which focused on trust and confidence, were highlighted as behavioral advertising, LBS, mobile applications and third-party sharing.
The report said around 81% of mobile users surveyed felt that safeguarding their personal information was very important and 76% said they were very selective about whom they gave their information to.
The study further said 89% of users think that it is important to know when personal information is being shared by an application and to be able to turn this off or on and 89% think it important to have the option of giving permission for personal information to be used by third parties.
As an industry organisation, the Mobile Marketing Association’s focus is on growing the mobile marketing and mobile advertising markets. To reach this goal we need to ensure that consumers understand the choices available to them when it comes to privacy, and thus the publication of our new LBS white paper.
Is regulation becoming an issue? Is there legislation blocking data gathering or use?
There is a proposed data protection framework in Singapore that aims to protect consumers’ personal data through regulation of the collection, use, disclosure, transfer and security of personal data. Through this framework, the government hopes to introduce a basic, broad-based data protection law applicable to private organizations, to create a balance between the need to protect individuals’ personal data vis-à-vis the need for organizations to use the data for legitimate and reasonable purposes.
In Malaysia, the Personal Data Protection Bill passed in 2009 aims to regulate the collection, processing,storage as well as exploitation of people’s personal data. The government is concerned about the importance of global business and trade, while at the same time emphasizes the protection of consumers and the public at large.
These legislations, however, are the governments’ response to citizen concerns about their data. There is no way to put monetary value on the damage done when trust between consumers and corporations is lost, and consumer data protections laws (like the ones proposed by MICA in Singapore) will go a long way toward building this trust. The time is ripe for a new regulatory environment and it is critical for future regulations to protect the consumers’ right to choose where, when and how to share their data, with the confidence that that data will be treated with respect, and securely protected.
