Università degli Studi di Bergamo MANAGEMENT, ECONOMICS AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS Management, Finance, International Business – Management, Leadership, Marketing Proximity Marketing and its technologies: more than 100 beacon use cases analysis Supervisor: Student: Professor Daniela Andreini Jennifer Bonacina 19th October 2016

Topic: Proximity Marketing Nearness in space Time Relationship a form of advertising, where a marketer is able to initiate a communication with a consumer that is timely, relevant and personal, through a portable device. To be more specific, we can add that: it is not one single technology: it’s a marketing approach that can involve one or more technologies it utilizes location technologies it’s not limited to smartphone usage it can actually be implemented utilizing a number of different methods Actors PSP (Proximity Solution Provider) Adopter Final consumer

Topic: Proximity Marketing history Location-triggered messages 2008 QR code 2010/2011 BLE beacon NFC Geofencing Wi-Fi Subsequent years BLE Beacon: cheap pieces of hardware that transmit Bluetooth Low Energy signals – which smartphones can detect. The interaction with the app can be used to determine the device’s location, especially indoors, as well as trigger a location-based action on the device, such as push notifications. Concerning beacon technology, two main protocols has been developed and launched: 2013: iBeacon  Apple 2015: Eddystone  Google NFC (Near Field Communication): a passive proximity marketing technology when compared to beacons, because it cannot be used to send push notifications. The signal is transmitted through an RFID chip (antenna) that has a very short range (20 cm). Popular use cases for NFC are mobile payments and providing additional product information in shops or exhibitions. Geofencing: a feature that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) to trigger an event when a device enters a virtual barrier. It is often used outdoors to engage customers in specific locations with a timely and relevant message. Wi-Fi: also Wi-Fi can be used by companies for marketing purpose: a company sets up several Wi-Fi hotspots and provides free internet access. In order to use it, customers have to log in and provide their details. The company who hosts the Wi-Fi network can then send location-specific content to the consumers’ browser.

Topic: Proximity Marketing statistics & trends Global Mobile Commerce Market $ 3,2 TRILLION by 2017 $ 52,46 Billion by 2022 CAGR = 29,80% 2016-2022) Proximity Marketing Market BLE beacon shipments $ 400 million in 2021 BLE beacons $ 500 million by 2021 In-building wireless market revenue $ 19 billion by 2025 Wearable device shipments $ 501 million by 2021 LTE (Long Term Evolution) global subscriptions $ 4 billion by 2021 RTLS (Real-time locating systems) and asset tracking market $ 15 billion by 2021

Objective: efficient solution or just a bunch of hype? PM EFFICIENCY But, even if the stats are positive and promising, there is so much discussion about proximity-based marketing today. Is it an efficient solution or just a bunch of hype? The objective of the thesis it to analyze and prove the efficiency of this approach: for a business is fundamental to understand what the potential of this approach could be how it can be used to improve consumers’ experience. It is a new and definitely more efficient way to increase the engagement and a lot of companies, all over the world, have already adopted it, thanks to the lower costs and a higher flexibility.

Analysis method 29 Countries 66 PSPs 19 Industry Verticals 12 Applications 141 USE CASES PSP source results industry vertical year application experience country goal […] The objective of the research is to understand: what is the impact of the adoption of proximity marketing solutions for each use case how the solutions can change according to the industry verticals and how the results may vary in countries with different culture and education. Therefore, for each use case, I gathered both qualitative and quantitative information, related to the solution adopted and its results. OBJECTIVE Impact Different solutions adopted Different results achieved

Results & Findings Performance improvement Interactions / Engagement rate Downloads / installation Subscription Customers increase App Users Advertised content's views CTR Coupon redemption 180% 300 - 8.000.000 200 - 1.400.000 455 - 8.000 112% 385.777 60.000 - 10.000.000 50,14% 166% 81% 126% 34% 125% 64% From the research study, different insights have emerged. We can notice the supremacy of the USA: 34,8% of the use cases are located in the United States, followed by the UK with 7,1% and Netherlands with 5,7%. Italy has only 2,8% as a demonstration of the lower level of proximity marketing “culture”. If we consider the industry verticals in which proximity marketing has been deployed, retail is the one that sees the higher number of adoptions, with 16,3%. It is the easier sector of application: the probability to understand and try to satisfy customers’ needs through PM solutions is high. Conference and Events is the second industry vertical in terms of adoptions, with 9,2% of use cases, followed by Airports (6,4%), Stadium & Sports (6,4%) and Shopping Malls (5,7%). Push notifications: about 70% of the use cases  the concept of reaching the right consumer at the right time, in the right place and with the right content is collecting more and more success and, because of that, the main reason why a user decides to adopt it is the possibility to send push notifications Analytics: about 42% Campaign Results about 36%  tightly connected to the strong presence of Coupon & Discounts about 37%  proximity services in retail and shopping malls The data collected are highly heterogeneous and in this table you can see the average results divided according to the different typology of data collected. + comments

Conclusions EFFICIENCY Lower costs Higher ROI EDUCATION culture preparation MIX OF DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS New technologies Flexibility You could have the most innovative product that has ever been invented, but if people do not know how it works, how good it is and what benefits it can bring, the possibilities of its rise are really low. The best results have been obtained by adopters that have mixed edifferent solutions, with the possibility to exploit all the available technologies and reach the highest number of consumers. Moreover, services are becoming accessible to every typology of business, even for the smaller ones, thanks especially to the release of new technologies such as Eddystone’s Physical Web, for which it is not necessary to have an app.

New solutions in new sectors Future research New solutions in new sectors Proximity marketing is just at the beginning of its deployment and development and there are still further researches and applications that worth to be made. It will be interesting to monitor how proximity technologies will be adopted by (relatively) new verticals, such as smart energy providers, public and medical sectors. Nowadays, some of these are developing new solutions with the aim to provide stronger citizens assistance and improve efficiency in public management.  prepararsi esempi

Thank you for your attention. Jennifer Bonacina 19th October 2016

Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Daniela Andreini, my supervisor, for her guidance and encouragement. My grateful thanks are also extended to Luca Locatelli, CEO of Near Srl, and all the members of the NearIT Team. Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends for their presence, support and encouragement. Dedication: to my super strong grandmother Agnese.