Executives from PlaceIQ and Universal McCann spoke about the importance of integrating location data into mobile campaigns during the “From Local to Scale: How to Marry Mobile Data to Multiscreen Marketing” session. One of the examples presented was a campaign with Sony Electronics and Best Buy that Universal McCann and PlaceIQ worked on.

“What works so far is location-based that’s beyond radius-targeting,” said Randy Hastings, Los Angeles-based associate portfolio director at Universal McCann.

“A lot of what we learned [with Sony Electronics] was beyond just the Best Buy, it was more effective for us to target our consumers outside of the Best Buy,” he said. “That’s a big change for us from radius-based geotargeting that was based on a lat-long because before now, that was really the pinnacle of as focused targeting as we could get.”

“This is a physical consumer journey that they were at T.J. Maxx before they were at Best Buy. Those kinds of insights help to change how we make them go to Best Buy.”

Better location-based targeting
Sony’s understanding of consumers used to be focused around a niche group of shoppers who are either traveling or going into camera and electronic stores, per Mr. Hastings.

However, the brand and UM found that with location-based marketing that consumers who were engaging with mobile ads were more likely to be in national or city parks versus in retail stores.

The takeaway from the Sony example is that media buyers and agencies need to move towards moment planning when a consumer is in a specific time.

According to Mr. Hastings, these learnings about the Sony campaign are being put into media plans for 2014 with campaigns that integrate into more outdoor places and national parks.

Multichannel mix
With the increase in location-based technology, mobile becomes more about targeting individual people versus populations.

Although mobile media budgets continue to grow, TV remains to be the predominant type of getting a message in front of a consumer.

Therefore, mobile’s role is to play off of that branding with super-specific calls-to-action to drive sales.

On the other hand, mobile can be used for building up awareness. For example, marrying up the location of a mobile device that is within a home with a TV program or ad can make a second-screen campaign more targeted.

“Mobile is the best place to identify and get in front of the moments that matter to people,” Mr. Hastings said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York