Search »

JiWire Reaches On-the-Go Audience, Offers Internet-like Measurability

Digital out-of-home has been gaining momentum, and is expected to be one of the areas in out-of-home to experience growth this year - PQ Media expects it will be up 9% in 2009. But some in the industry say the medium is failing to live up to its potential because advertisers still lack solid metrics.

JiWire, a company that delivers ads on over 25,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots, is a mobile audience media company that offers the same measurability advertisers get with online advertising, the company claims.

JiWire gives advertisers targeted and measurable ways to reach people on wireless devices such as laptops, networks and Wi-Fi enabled phones. Campaigns via JiWire target the 43 million people using public hotspots - and that audience is three times more likely to have a higher income than the general population (based on data from Nielsen).

McCann WorldGroup and Microsoft are using JiWire’s media channel for a new advertising campaign to increase purchase intent of Microsoft’s Office 2007 Home and Student editions. Instead of demographic-only targeting, the campaign uses geo-targeting to reach families with more accuracy. Parents of school-age children were served relevant messages about the Student Edition, while high-income families saw messages about the Home Edition.

McCann WorldGroup evp and chief innovation officer says that with JiWire, “we can micro-target an audience, and knowing exactly who will be viewing our advertisements makes for less waste and a higher attention level.”

Because it can target at a more granular level, McCann can develop messages that are relevant to the audience and the environment, creating a more effective campaign, the company says.

“We have a deep understanding of who is using wireless networks and therefore have the ability to be that much more targeted, which is particularly important in the current economy,” says Kevin McKenzie, founder and chief executive officer of JiWire. “As people increasingly access the internet from places outside of their home and office, JiWire’s goal is to leverage this for advertisers while enabling wireless Internet service operators to monetize their networks.”

Adcentricity, aggregator of more than 80 out-of-home digital networks, is another company reaching on-the-go consumers. The aggregator recently added a mobile component to its offerings via a partnership with Impact Mobile.

“The convergence between digital out-of-home media and mobile is happening now and smart marketers are figuring out how to use these forms of media together to create the ultimate engagement tool,” says Rob Gorrie, CEO of Adcentricity. Gorrie believes that adding a mobile component to a digital out-of-home plan enables consumers to interact with brand messages in a relevant way and offers an additional means to evaluate ROI.