Navteq’s LocationPoint ad network comes to SA

NAVTEQ today announced the launch of NAVTEQ LocationPoint ad network in South Africa, where it will be represented by authorized reseller Wand Africa. In parallel with the launch, it also announced results of a trial location-aware mobile ad campaign for South African restaurant chain Spur Steak Ranches.

In a highly-targeted three-month brand awareness campaign, NAVTEQ LocationPoint delivered mobile ads for Spur Steak Ranches to smartphone users when they were within five kilometers of any of Spur’s 280 South African restaurants. Banner ads appeared as users engaged with their smart phone: the ad landing page invited users to visit their nearest Spur restaurant and to ‚Come Hungry!‚

The campaign resulted in a 3.66% click-through rate. Of users who clicked through, 36% went on to further engage with the ad experience. Significantly, 19.5% of these asked for a map to the location while 6.5% placed calls directly from the ad landing page to the nearest Spur restaurant.

“The trial opened our eyes to the possibilities of location-aware mobile advertising,‚ said Sacha du Plessis, marketing director, Spur. ‚NAVTEQ LocationPoint ads proved a powerful tool to helping us remind locals to visit their neighborhood Spur restaurant and to also connect with travelers who know the Spur brand but who may not be familiar with area.‚

NAVTEQ LocationPoint delivers hyper-local ads to nearby mobile consumers as they approach local advertised merchants. The ads provide built-in calls to action that seamlessly enable consumers to call, map, and route to local merchant. Launched in 2009 in the U.S., and now available throughout Europe and Asia-Pacific, NAVTEQ LocationPoint aggregates quality mobile ad inventory spanning smartphones, personal navigation devices, and mobile applications.

Wand Africa worked with Spur’s local location-based media agency, Business Positioning Systems, to create the LocationPoint campaign. ‚The results gave everyone great insight into the effectiveness of LocationPoint,‚ said Charles Talbot, CEO Wand Africa. ‚We’re pleased to be representing it the South African market.‚

‚As the Spur campaign showed, NAVTEQ LocationPoint is a powerful means to convert the passer-by to a consumer,‚ said David Barker, head of ad sales for NAVTEQ in EMEAR. ‚We’re excited about bringing LocationPoint to South Africa, which we view as a very important market.‚

“