Location, location, location

By Mark McGuinness , managing director, eMainstream Marketing

I am often asked what will be the next big innovation in the i-gaming and gambling industry.

I believe it will be pretty much business as usual as brands and marketers continue get to grips with the whole social and digital biosphere that their consumers inhabit.

One area that I do consider will further come into its own is that of location-based marketing and services. Smartphones’ sales continue their unprecedented growth with Google recently reporting that they have activated some 200 million Android devices, which equates to some 550,000 activations per day.

Google looks set to eclipse Apple, which according to sources has some 250 million devices around the world and dominate the US and global smartphone market.

It is this continued growth in smartphones that allows a number of opportunities for brands and marketers to engage customers based on their physical location. Location based marketing allows you to target geographically selected messages and also use the location information to better understand the behaviour and needs of that customer for future marketing campaigns and development of services.

There are already an abundance of location-based services out there, such as Google Places, as the majority of smartphones come with Google Maps pre-installed. This particular service allows the user to seek directions and search for locally based services that they require.

Other services include the recently launched Facebook deals and Foursquare, which are location-based social networks accessed by mobile apps, in which it allows retailers, bars, restaurants and supermarkets to encourage footfall into the physical store locations with incentives such as money-off vouchers and unique or time sensitive special promotions. With the continued usage of smartphones pre and downloaded mobile apps and a veracious demand by consumers for deals in a depressed economy and localisation offers can only contain to drive the distribution potential.

So if retailers and social networks are already using the mobile network for deployment of location based services and marketing, while hasn’t the gaming and gambling industry? The truth of the matter is location based gaming is already here and forecast for rapid growth and could be labelled the next big thing.

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Meet the Contributors

David Snook, a partner of InterGame Ltd., has been in the games and gaming industry since 1967. He was Editor of Coin Slot for 26 years and Joint Managing Director of The World's Fair, Coin Slot's parent company. He co-founded InterGame in 1994 and regularly writes for all InterGame’s publications.
Mark McGuinness has more than 12 years’ experience in marketing director roles with both private and public i-gaming operators. Managing director of Isle of Man-based eMainstream Marketing, a digital agency offering business and marketing advice on social gaming, i-gaming and land-based gambling, he also serves as social and community director of the Sports Betting Community Network.
Adrian Drewitz is international sales manager for leading US-based manufacturer Bay-Tek Games. While he only joined the company five years ago, during this time he has built up strong relationships with key operators around the world and has gained in-depth invaluable knowledge on the leisure and amusement industry.