Would You Like Clicks With That Sir?

[RobBrady]

NAVTEQ, one of the leading global provider of maps and location data, have provided an interesting insight into future GPS usage on mobile devices.

A pilot mobile advertising campaign in Finland has achieved what appears to be an extremely healthy response rate in NAVTEQ's first targeted campaign in Europe by a global brand advertiser.

The campaign enabled McDonald's to deliver mobile ads promoting cheese burgers for 1 Euro to users of Nokia Ovi Maps when they were near one of McDonald's 82 restaurants in Finland.

7.0% of the targeted consumers clicked on the ads for further details and consequently received the opportunity to see driving or walking directions to the nearest restaurant. Of those who clicked the ad, 39% selected the "drive to" or "walk to" location click-to-navigate option.

The percentage of those that crossed a McDonald's threshold was however not reported.

Whilst 7.0% click-through and 39% follow-through is a very healthy metric indeed, it is meaningless without hard and fast purchase volume figures. It's not known if NAVTEQ are choosing not to share these figures because of commercial sensitivity, but one thing is for sure, just because a pilot run attracts initial interest, it doesn't necessarily follow that those who responded would do so a second time. Also, first time curiosity in the ad's click-to-navigate option doesn't necessarily mean that the feature was actually used to navigate anywhere.

That said, even if a response rate to this sort of advertising attracted a mere 1% of mobile phone users, it is still set to become a multi-billion dollar industry in the not to distant future.

Tuula Rytila-Uotila, Vice President Location, Nokia said, "As consumers turn to their mobile devices for more services, such as music, maps, and entertainment, contextually relevant advertising can enhance the consumer experience while minimizing costs of the services to users."

The big question is, will advertising eventually make most of what we do on mobile devices free?
_________________
Robert Brady

[Gerry123]

Other than the fact that' it's unsafe to use a mobile device whilst driving when you "click the ad" I'm giving up driving, sat nav, mobile phones, ipods and any other gadget you can think of. Adverts on maps???? What is the world coming to.

I'm off to live in the mountains in a hut.

[bryce]

This is utterly pathetic there is allready far to much unwanted crap like this being pushed down our throats from all angles.
(I presume this is not allowed to happen whilst one is navigating a moving vehicle as ANY distraction to ones driving is very dangerous. )

Room for another one Gerry123??

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