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A two-and-a-half year-old company in Sunnyvale, Calif., is offering a service that lets merchants offer free, advertising-supported Wi-Fi to customers; people using AnchorFree Wi-Fi will see banner ads or short video spots before reaching their browsing destinations and advertisers can target their ads by a variety of demos.
Advertisers include American Express, Circuit City, Clorox, Ford, Kaiser Permanente, McDonald’s, Toyota and Major League Baseball, writes The New York Times.
Adveritsers can target their ads to specific locations, so that an ad for a luxury product might be shown to people staying at a four-star hotel and not to guests at an airport motel. The AnchorFree website pinpoints a variety of locations at which advertisers can reach different demos, including doctors’ offices, coffee shops, hotel chains, car dealerships, airports and marinas.
Mark Smith, executive vp for marketing and strategy, calls the Wi-Fi network an “untapped market of virtual billboards.”
AnchorFree is one of a handful of companies that offers Wi-Fi for no fee to both users and retailers. San Francisco-based JiWire is another.
Analysts in the wireless industry believe this sector will evolve along with the growth of wireless internet use. Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer with the Yankee Group, says the key will be whether advertisers will embrace the model and drive online advertising revenue toward Wi-Fi hotspots.
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