Location-based offer targeting is no storm in a teacup for Starbucks

The holy grail of brand communication these days is not beautiful advertising or celebrity endorsement, but personal relevance. Getting close to customers in an innovative way without crowding, spamming or just annoying them is no mean feat. While this new media space is fiercely competitive, it can offer wonderful rewards for brands that get it right.

And if that personal, relevant communication also offers customers convenience or somehow improves their personal or work lives (with minimal effort on their own part), the brand responsible for this is on a winning track.

Starbucks and L’Oreal are making waves in this space. Through Telefonica O2 UK Ltd and its mobile marketing company O2 Media, these brands are conducting surprising and for most part, delightful trials based on geotargeting.

Brand fans who have opted in to receive their communications supply data such as their age, gender, interests and most importantly location. The brands then target these customers with clever location-based, customised messaging via SMS and MMS.

Imagine you’re on Starbucks’ mailing list. As you approach one of their coffee shops, your phone beeps with a message that offers you a discount code or voucher for your next coffee purchase. Nice.

Or you’re signed up with L’Oreal and when you’re in the vicinity of one of their stockists, you receive an MMS about a special offer.

The beauty of this personal ‘in’ is that the messages arrive when consumers are more likely to act on what can be perceived as a well-timed promotional message.

But is this an opportunity only attractive to the kind of target markets Starbucks and L’Oreal speak to? Will other audiences feel vulnerable, threatened or angry that their exact location is being monitored and capitalised upon?

The real challenge for brands will be how to prepare their customers for a sudden, somewhat telepathic-seeming text message. And part of the solution-seeking may well involve a system which connects with people when they want the messages, as opposed to when it is convenient for the brand. 

UPDATE:

Expect more of this sort of location-based offer targeting from a much wider range of brands. Facebook has just launched 'Deals', which lets companies offer Facebook users special offers when the users 'check in' to specified 'Places'. Find out more about this on Facebook's site.