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Last year, the Pok\u00e9mon Go phenomenon persuaded millions of mobile gamers to opt-in to GPS location sharing. While there were some privacy concerns at the time, the game (which is the most downloaded iOS game in history) was able to tangibly build a bridge between the digital and physical worlds, which many would agree has been the holy grail of location-based ad targeting, for quite some time.<\/p>\n
The challenge for businesses, and app creators, is to provide enough of an incentive, and a justifiable value exchange, for consumers to part with their location data. Increasingly this motivation will have nothing to do with the function or purpose of the actual app, which creates an even bigger obstacle for businesses to overcome. With Pok\u00e9mon Go, the trade-off is being able to play and capture virtual creatures (location sharing is a basic feature of the game), but few businesses will have the opportunity to build such a convincing case.<\/p>\n
Location-based ad play is predicted to grow from $9.8 billion in 2015 to $29.5 billion by 2020, according to BIA\/Kelsey\u2019s latest local media\u00a0forecast<\/a>. That equates to\u00a039% of overall mobile ad revenues, growing to 41% by 2020. Key drivers for this growth include mobile local intent, and advertiser evolution to follow that usage, so now is the time for businesses to begin building location sharing into their media strategy.<\/p>\n One trailblazing company to watch and learn from is ride-hailing app Uber. Through the nature of its business it knows where its customers are going and the places they\u2019ve visited (it recently moved to track location more pervasively via forced opt-in), so it\u2019s very well placed to be a forerunner in location sharing. For very good reason, Uber has been reluctant to bombard passengers with location-based ads and in-car digital displays etc, at the risk of diminishing the user experience and jeopardising its primary revenue stream, in exchange for a small ad return. So instead it has begun to lay the foundations for an enhanced, content-rich in-ride experience, delivered through a combination of social-local targeted data.<\/p>\n A few new features launched within Uber\u2019s UI update towards the end of last year, hinting at what\u2019s to come. For example it rolled out a new location feature which\u00a0lets passenger\u00a0navigate to a person<\/a>\u00a0rather than place, which also requires the second person\u2019s location to be tracked. This is a great example of the power of sharing, as it has the capacity to use behavioural profiles based on all the places a passenger has gone and their contacts to create extremely personalised and precisely targeted and content.<\/p>\n