Location Based Marketing: Opportunity For Asia
Smartphone’s and location-based social networks are a great opportunity for the marketers of Asia. It allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.
The reason that location based marketing is such a great opportunity for marketers, is the huge amount of smartphone’s active in Asia. Surprisingly, it is the agricultural sector who had a huge influence on these figures.
But what is Location Based Service? A Location Based Service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device.
One of the main reasons that smartphone’s are a huge success in Asia is because phones can be used for making financial transactions. This method of payment is particular popular among farmers. A couple of years ago, banks made it possible for farmers to place financial transactions over the phone by for example sending text messages. A lot farmers didn’t have a bank account nor an internet connection at the time and this was a perfect solution. This movement is one of the reasons the main reasons why the personal computer phase was skipped and why the phone has became such a success across all lines within the population of Asia.
In order for location based services to become a success several steps need to be taken. The most important step is to stimulate and create a mass movement. Social media can be an excellent tool to give this such a movement a boost and since smartphone’s are immensely popular in Asia, it is a simple one plus one is three situation. A succesful example of mass movement was seen in Iceland. The people of Iceland created a movement after the volcano erupted in April, 2010. The volcano left an enormous mess along the beautiful coastline of Iceland. Everybody agreed to help and to clean the mess, which resulted in a beautiful clean coastline.
But how do you motivate the people of Asia to start using the location based services? This is where the marketers come in. They have the tools and funding to move people into this direction, plus they will be the first and one of the great beneficials. The possibilities with applications like Foursquare, Facebook Places and Layar are endless.
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I wrote an article on how Location Based Services can be a great opp for Asia http://bit.ly/dYeulB
http://www.viralblog.com/mobile-and-iphone/location-based-marketing-opportunity-for-asia/
Location Based Marketing is a great opp for successful @CampaignAsia http://bit.ly/dYeulB
Blogpost by @paulbraat http://www.viralblog.com/mobile-and-iphone/location-based-marketing-opportunity-for-asia/
Great article Paul!
I’ve read a lot of stories about mobile marketing in Asia and particularly Japan and South Korea seem to be ahead of the curve. Particularly bluetooth marketing has been used widely and is found less intrusive than here in Europe.
It will be interesting to see if we will see similar approached adopted or if brands will have to find other models more suitable to the local populations.
RT @braat: I wrote an article on how Location Based Services can be a great opp for Asia http://bit.ly/dYeulB
RT @braat: I wrote an article on how Location Based Services can be a great opp for Asia http://bit.ly/dYeulB
Thanks Daan! Glad you enjoyed it.
I am also very curious how mobile marketing will evolve. I think Asia can and should definitely take a lead here. Don’t forget India. Huge opportunities there as well.