Just two topics this week – something we’re really excited by and something we’re less keen on.

Location

With more details of Facebook Places emerging we’ve been thinking more about location – helped by a good IAB session on location today. 

The event put location into perspective – speakers talked about location in the context of search, about how Navteq are embedding marketing messages into their map products – with impressive reach (85% of in car systems use Navteq and their owner Nokia uses them to power Ovi Maps) – and the IAB had done some research looking at consumer thoughts on location, which were largely positive

We see location as the secret ingredient in mobile search; something that will drive a huge change in how brands and retailers promote themselves.

Our favourite theoretical example is Ben Sherman; searching for them on the PC gets you lots of ads for online retailers, and on mobile it’s the same. Yet if I’m searching for them on my mobile I’m probably looking for a stockist – so why isn’t someone telling me where I can buy them around my location?

If Ben Sherman was our client we’d be testing mobile search ads – and using a mobile version of the site – to drive traffic to key retailers. And, learning from our friends in FMCG, using this traffic driving to get better placings in the retailers. All of which drives sales.
 
Google are catering for this with their Blue Dot programme in the US, where they provide a mobile version of their shopping results – but showing local stockists, together with real time information on stock levels and prices.
 
As retailers start to understand the power of location in driving traffic, we’ll start to see smart brands seize the opportunity of mobile search.
 
At the IAB the audience were asked whether Facebook Places was the biggest news in location and most of the crowd – oddly – felt it wasn’t. We disagree – we’re convinced it is a huge step for location, for Facebook and for mobile.
 
Things like Foursquare are great fun, and they are growing quickly but we don’t think civilians are ever going to get that excited by becoming mayor of somewhere – even when brands like Gap offer a 25% discount to anyone who checks in to a Gap store on Foursquare. You start to see the problem for Foursquare when the cream of Londons’ digital thinkers are attending this location focused event at the IAB – yet there was only one other person checked in on FourSquare. But when asked who uses Facebook, every hand went up.
 
So Facebook can take the opportunity defined by Foursquare and Gowalla etc – and boom – it’s mass market. This scale then adds a whole new dimension to advertising – for the first time we can target people who we know have been to a particular store.
 
Imagine that Facebook enable this targeting; McDonalds can target a coffee offer to everyone who has checked in at a Starbucks, Pret, Costa etc in the last x days. And they can make sure that anyone who has checked in at the Golden Arches doesn’t see it – no point in cannibalising sales amongst existing customers.
 
Layer onto this the ability to target by location, time and profile – so now the offer is only seen by customers of competitor stores when they are in certain postcodes during offpeak times – and excluding anyone under 20 who might hang around too long in the store. This ability to drive footfall into specific stores is hugely attractive to any retailer – and to brands. Again, consider a FMCG brand who is listed in Tesco but not in Sainsburys – Facebook Places will let them deliver offers only to people who have checked in at Tesco.
 
Location is going to be huge – but the amount of work involved means its an area for experts, and not jack of all trades agencies.

 
We don’t like CTR

Clickthrough rates have been the bane of the online world and it looks like we might make the same mistake with mobile.
 
Because the click on a banner could be measured everyone decided the web was all about direct response. But as the novelty wore off – when people realis

ed that clicking on an ad banner was likely to result in a dull experience – people stopped clicking. There is lots of research that shows most people don’t click – and lots of research showing that online ads work even when people don’t click – in fact Comscore research shows online to be just as good as TV!
 (Darren Hermann is trying to get a debate going about clickthrough and the alternative measures of effectiveness– which will be worth following.)

But in mobile we keep seeing people talk up clickthrough –and we’re sure we are going to see the same decline in clicks and we risk the same kickback. Mobile marketing and advertising is about engagement and driving action – and consequently driving revenue. We have to make sure we focus on those success stories, rather than a simplistic measures like clicks.

Finally – we ‘re off to Brazil next week to keynote for the MMA – so let us know who we should meet in Sao Paulo – or just any cool things to see of do whilst we’re there. And our training session for ISBA still has some spaces, so if your brand is a member of ISBA and you want a practical guide to what’s happening in mobile, sign up here.

We produce Mobile Fix every week, reflecting the significant news in mobile. The content is also added to the addictive blog, where you can comment. If you’d like to know more about any of these topics or share your thoughts let us know. And please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested – they can sign up for email updates here – or either the email or the RSS feed on the site.