Washington Post: Ad Week DC will touch on how to reach consumers via mobile devices, geography
If you were among the hundreds of thousands on the National Mall for Jon Stewart’s 2010 “Rally To Restore Sanity,” you may have caught a glimpse of Greg Kihlström’s work.
Kihlström, the founder and chief executive of Alexandria digital advertising and marketing agency Carousel30, was working behind the scenes to get rally-goers to donate money to his client, the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit that seeks to preserve and improve the Mall. Because the National Park Service restricts the solicitation of donations on the premise, Kihlström’s agency instead targeted them digitally by posting the trust’s Web site on large video screens around the Mall. Once people pulled the site up on their smartphones, they were directed to a mobile-friendly donation form.
The push to tailor marketing materials to the mobile devices of a geographically targeted audience — often within a few city blocks — is taking hold as advertising and marketing agencies scramble to keep up with the preferences of consumers who are using mobile devices more than ever to shop, hail drivers and order food. It’s a phenomenon that will be much discussed at this week’s Ad Week DC, the 11th annual event hosted by the DC Ad Club.