Proximity is a Virtue
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Faris Yakob chief innovation officer at MDC Partners discusses how proximity is a virtue.
Last week I gave a little keynote at the NYC launch of the Location Based Marketing Association as part of InternetWeek.
The title is something I find myself saying a lot, one which ultimately stems, I assume, from my laziness, but can probably be expanded to a larger point.
Proximity is a virtue because, even in world flattened by the Internets, things that are nearby are more vaulable, useful, important, most of the time.
In the obvious sense that if I want or need something, nearby is usually better.
But also in the sense that proximity is hugely influential driver of behavior and decision making.
The biggest influences on you are the people you spend the most time with – usually the people you work with.
Behavior is ‘socially contagious‘ within certain parameters.
The environment you are in is itself both a powerful driver of influence and a good indicator of context.
Then I go on to consider what Location Based Marketing might actually be – since it should probably include posters as well as geolocative mobile advertising.
[If there is, in fact, a difference.]
I liked finding the fact that the founder of COLOR said
“their first iteration is about proximity. They want to understand who you’re with”
[which makes me ponder why they decided to call it COLOR, and not, say, PROXIMITY.]
And I finished up touching on the digital exhaust stuff I was talking about below.
THE LBMA makes a distinction between Location Based Services, like Foursquare, and location based marketing, as well they should.
But my final example, the BMW EVolve application we created, is a location based service that is also marketing.
I think.
Proximimty is still a virtue, and a few more examples bring that to life, includin, Zaarly, Neighbourgoods and Whipcar, all of which use proximity to facilate sales, renting or sharing.
It also touches on another idea I’ve been playing with about what customers are:
Customers are to people as waves are to water.
“For the majority of marketing, it may be better not to think of customers as people.
‘Customers’ are a repeating pattern of behaviour that expresses itself in people – from the point of view of a company, it doesn’t really matter who that person is when they walk into a store.
Throughout the marketing process, we spend a lot of time trying to understand the kind of people who are most likely to buy, but behavioural economics and decision research all suggest that ‘where’, ‘what’ and ‘when’ are at least as important as ‘who’.”
Which is a nice [as in accurate..I think], slightly abstruse concept to mull over during the long weekend [USA only, check your local listings].
Posted: August 24th, 2011 | Author: stuart.treasure | Filed under: Faris Yakob | Tags: Faris Yakob, marketing society, proximity is a virtue | Leave a Comment »
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