New item from MediaPost: Smart Lights In Stores Can Pinpoint Shoppers to Within 8 Inches For Messaging, by Chuck Martin.Hereâs the text, with my responses:Indoor beaconing isgoing wall to wall.
Or more accurately, itâs going from ceiling to floor, as store lighting joins the Internet of Things.
The ultimate effect is that the location of in-storeshoppers can be very precisely identified and retailers or marketers can then deliver highly targeted, location-based offers, on the spot.
Do any shoppers want this? By what evidence? That they already have a CVS or Walmart app? Presumably.I find myself thinking, given Appleâs moves on the privacy front, that Customer Commons should propose filtration of apps in app stores by customer terms. As in âonly show me apps compliant with my terms (or preferences)."GPS has been pretty good at identifying generallocation and when combined with Wi-Fi and beacons, the combo can paint a pretty good picture of proximity of a person.
GPS + Wi-Fi has proven good for providing graces such as better navigation in mapping apps, but in the second clause in that sentence I see a slippery slope from a handy feature to unwanted personalization.Letâs look at affordances here. The single affordance we want from a light is illumination. Thatâs it.But now other location technology, along with beacons, is being builtinto light bulbs.
This is yet further evidence that beacons asbattery-operated, standalone devices may have seen their day, as I wrote about recently (Beacons, GPS, Wi-Fi Combo: The New Mobile Presence).
When installed atretailers, these smart lights can locate a shopper at a precision of 8to 12 inches and then promotions and other messages can be triggeredbased on the location.
We do expect stores to have cameras or one-way mirrors that allow security people to spot shoplifting. The affordances of those are self-evident and separate from those of lighting.And hey, maybe we also donât mind âsmartâ lights that also have cameras for security work. Those exist too.But we donât want lights to identify us personally and send us messages. Not yet, anyway, and not until we have some kind of genuine opt-in relationship with the store. More about that below.I just spent some timespeaking with two of the executives in charge of implementing theconnected lights strategy to see how this approach will be used fortargeted marketing and advertising.
âThis is aboutproximity vs. positioning,â said Gerben van der Lugt, global businessdevelopment lead for indoor positioning at Philips Lighting, a companythatâs been in the lighting business since1891.
Yesterday I threw out a bunch of Philips bulbs I hadnât yet used, because others just like them fell apart after they died, right in their sockets. When I tried to unscrew their glass-and-shit-metal corpses, the bulbs fell out in my hand while the screw bases stayed stuck inside the sockets. I had to make sure the electricity was off while I worked each bulb base out of each socket, using a needle-nosed pliers, like a dentist extracting a rotted tootht. If I were a retailer having the same experience, Philipsâ brand value for me would sink toward Zika's.So letâs say you enter a CVS store equipped with these things, and you open your CVS app just so you can find which aisle has, say, the nasal spray. Is the first thing you want to see instead is a promotional message that says âHey! Deal on batteries, right there by your right knee!âInstead of sending a signal to a smartphone, like beacons, the LED lights in a store connect with a phone screen as soon as it isopened.
(Credit where due: the CVS app is actually okay at helping manage prescriptions. Could be better, but itâs actually useful, to some degree.)I donât mind not seeing the modulation, but I do mind being spied on without permission.Each light fixture has a uniqueidentification code using what Philips calls visible light communication.
A smartphone camera detects the code in the light and identifies its precise location. And thatâs wheremarketing messages come in.
âEvery fixture has a unique ID and a small variation in the intensity of light,â said van der Lugt. âThecamera of the phone can see themodulation, although people canât.â
As with beacons, the shopper has to have a relevant app, such as the retailerâs where they are shopping.
Thatâs good. It would also help if they were made aware that systems like this are in place, and opt-in, rather than opt-out.Carrefore installed thePhilips location-based lighting system in its hypermarket in France using 800 lighting fixtures.
Wonder how well that system agrees with the spirit as well as the letter of French and EU privacy laws.Correction: Carrefor.âThe retail space is transforming,â said Ravi Koul, marketing director,retail andhospitality at Philips Lighting. âAt Carrefore,
Well, thatâs good.the app ties into thepromotion system so a consumer can select and browse through thepromotions.
âWhen theyâre in the store,the app opens and the shopper can say âshow all promotions around me.ââ (Koul will be detailing this in a presentation at the MediaPost Iot Marketing Forum in New York on Aug. 3).
One of the main differences in using lighting for location is in cost, since to add thetechnology to the lighting is incremental, rather than having to install separate beacons, for example.
âThey need lights, and they can outfit them with communications or not,âsaid Koul. âBut adding the communication can make them future proof.â
The key is that location is becoming much more refined.
âProximity marketing is different thanindoor positioning,â said Koul. âThere is nothing as accurate as lighting.â
As with beacons, consumers have to opt in to receive the light-triggered messaging.
âPeople kind of like that as well, since theyâre in control of the connectivity,â said van der Lugt.
In addition to the lighting-triggered technology, the fixtures caninclude beaconing technology, so that even while in a pocket or purse, the smartphone location can be identified and tracked.
But when opened, the person holding the phone can be located towithin a few inches.
Better crosshairs. Nice.As a next step I can almost hear a phone talking from a purse, saying âLetâs see what else youâve got in here⌠Lipstick, a bunch of credit cards, an umbrella, a pack of smokesâhey, we thought you quit! Have you tried vaping? We have those on sale!"The Internet of Things is birthing a new state of location.As if the Internet of Things is only about retail promotions.Hereâs another MediaPost piece by Chuck Martin, from a few days ago:Hereâs the pull-quote that matters from that one:only about a third (36%) of consumers have tried a mobile payment app in a store within the last year, more intent on using credit anddebit cards, based on a new retail study.
Most (61%) of them say security issues are holding them back, according to the annual Futureof Retail study, which comprised a survey of 1,400 U.S.consumersâ shopping habits, preferences and views on emerging retailtechnology conducted by Walker Sands Communications.
The rest of the post makes clear that the appetite for store apps, at least as of today, is bargain hunters and coupon clippers.Okay, so letâs VRM this thing, and say we design a retail app for individual shoppers that gives them scale: one app for dealing with many stores. What would that app be? Are we already part way there with intelligent assistants and intentcasting? And can we pivot Chuck Martinâs and MediaPostâs interest in spyware-based IoT into an interest in shopping experiences led by shoppers themselves?Iâd like us to try.Doc
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