Geo-Fencing is the new advertising stratedgy

Take a Step Closer for an Invitation to Shop


Do you think advertising has already gone to far? Whether your watching your favorite television show and it cuts out to have 10 minutes of commercials, or your in the car listening to some tunes only to have the song end and change to more tedious radio spots to pop-ups on your computer while your broswing different sites, advertisements are EVERYWHERE. Well as technology grows so do the ideas of different ways to advertise and it is drastically doing so. While there are new social media networks to advertise on the internet including Twitter, Facebook and Digg these sources of media are available as applications now on cell phones. This makes news, media and advertisements very conveinent for people to recieve on-the-go.


Many companies including NorthFace have had trouble bringing customers into their store recently with the economy. Advertising today has dramatically change. The usual TV, Radio and Magazine ads just don't cut it anymore. Now stores like NorthFace are trying new tactics in order to bring in customers. A new way of advertising that NorthFace is going to test out is Geo-Fencing. According to Wikipedia a Geo-fence is a virtual perimeter on a geographic area using a location-based service, so that when the geo-fencing device enters or exits the area a notification is generated. The notification can contain information about the location of the device and might be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account. When companies use geo-fencing through cell phones it basically sends people text messages or e-mails as soon as they get near a store. This text message/e-mail will send the person an advertisement, coupon or discount when there in the vacinity of the certain store.

Like I said earlier most phones now have the internet which means they also have e-mail. Most of the time when I recieve an e-mail it's spam, which I depise! Would these texts be just like it? Will I walk through NYC or downtown New Haven, CT and be in the vacinity of many stores and have my phone start blowing up with annoying messages? I'm sure if I walked passed a coffee shop and recieved a coupon for a free coffee I would walk in and get it and be happy, but I doubt it will be that worth it. Although this article states that you can opt in or out to this new advertising tactic but as much as I try to get rid of spam or put my name/number on the do not call list, it is never enough.