Beacon Deployments And Announcements Continue To Grow

The world of beacons is growing at an impressive rate, with new beacon deployments and announcements being made almost every day.

Beaconing programs are being launched and tested in a wide variety of locations, including stores, libraries, airports and museums. At the same time, innovative ways to use beacons are being introduced and announcements about new programs and alliances are being made regularly.

Some examples of new beacon programs that are being rolled out include:

• A library in Orlando has started using beacons to send location-triggered information, including library offers and events. The Neue Galerie in New York and Boston Athenaeum are also using beacons for visitors.
• The automotive industry is currently testing beacons. Ford is experimenting with using beacons at dealerships to allow shoppers to quickly see the specific features of a vehicle that they are interested in.
• Airports in Miami, Dallas, Austin and London are using beacons to improve the passenger experience, including providing departure gate information, checking security wait times and offering relevant coupons.
• Many types of arenas are installing beacons to allow attendees to receive special deals as they walk by specific concession stands.

While the aforementioned deployments are certainly significant, businesses are also investigating new ways to use beacon-triggered knowledge. One such innovation is the SapientNitro idea to use location information to modify in-store screen videos as a shopper approaches, as a way to reach a consumer on a highly personalized level based on their own profile.

Another interesting move comes from beacon company ShopX, as it announced its plans to give away a million free beacons to U.S. retailers. While the company makes its own beacons, it says that its platform will also work with other beacons, such as those from Gimbal and Estimote. It explained that although it doesn’t charge for the tools to manage the marketing component of the beacons, the company plans to generate revenue from the enterprise tools and software that it sells.

In other news, mobile ad platform Opera Mediaworks recently announced an alliance with four beacon companies (Signal360, Roximity, Pulsate and Pinpoint Mobile), with the goal to help advertisers with improving mobile media targeting.

Andrew Dubatowka, the company’s Director of Innovation Product Strategy, explained to MediaPost that the concept is to use post-beaconing data to power paid media later. The intention is to enhance ad platform targeting by using customer data that beacon companies would share with the alliance for re-use in advertising sent to specific brand customers.

Truthfully, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as beaconing innovation and activity is continuing to grow at an exponential rate. It will be very interesting to see how many of these innovations become successful and how many are simply not adapted by the market. We’ll be keeping a close watch as these developments unfold.