Navteq has launched a new location-based mobile advertising service in Australia, which allows advertisers to target products and services to a consumer’s current location.
The digital mapmaker has partnered with local company Yapp Mobile to offer its new service, LocationPoint Advertising, via Mocal, one of the most popular downloaded navigation products on Apple’s iTunes store.
Mocal allows users to find local restaurants, bars or businesses and view their location on an interactive Navteq map of Australia. The user can share their favourite places with others and go to a selected destination using turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Yapp Mobile’s introductory offer includes free turn-by-turn navigation capabilities for the first 30 days.
LocationPoint is platform independent, which means it can be used with any connected portable navigation device or mobile phone application. Users can access special offers via the ‘click to coupon’ function and use ‘click to map’ or ‘click to navigate’ for directions to advertised locations. There is also a ‘click to call’ option so users can contact stores and advertisers directly.
Navteq may be looking to establish an early presence in a market that is tipped to become the next great battleground in advertising. Tech giants Apple and Google have already signalled their intentions to enter the mobile advertising market, with Google purchasing AdMob, a standout in the nascent mobile advertising market, in November last year and Apple acquiring Quattro Wireless, AdMob’s closest rival, in January.
The stakes were raised again in March with the news that the US Patent and Trademark Office had awarded Google a patent for using location information in an advertising system.
