1. David Wright
David.Wright@kantar.com
Using Proximity Beacons to extract
meaning from offline interactions

2. What are they?
Mostly Battery!

3. Where do they fit into the Proximity Toolkit?
Cell ID – in retail park – several large department stores
GPS – Upmarket Department Store within retail park
WIFI – On second “fashion” floor
Beacon – Dwelled in Handbag Section
Beacon or NFC – Made a Purchase
100m – 1k
10-50m
20-200m
30cm-3m
<20cm

4. How do they work?

5. -90
-80
-70
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
RSSI
What does beacon data look like?
RSSI = Received Signal Strength Indication

6. Wrist sensor compared to pocket
-74
-72
-70
-68
-66
-64
-62
-60
-58
-56
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
RSSI

7. Start-ups making sense of sensor noise

8. Beacon’s are already evolving
Stand-alone/battery
USB plugin Solar Power Stickers

9. Sensor Stickers!
Location/DistanceMotion Air QualityTemperature

10. Proximity “Listening” Flow
GEO-FENCE BEACON
ZONE
NFC
OTHER SENSORS
> X Seconds > X Seconds

11. Why this Rapid Evolution?
Indoor location = $10 billion in 2020
ABI Research
Beacon engagements
= 5 x more interaction
Over-saturation and irrelevant messages
= Decline and Delete

12. Lots of challenges
• No-one has your app!
• 8-18 % Have Bluetooth Turned on
• Large Retailers – tentative In Pilot Mode...
• Android >= only .... 4.4 kitkat above and lollipop....
• iOS 7.0 and above
• Getting the numbers to measure OOH uplift -requires huge listening
reach
• Security Issues.... i.e. third parties mapping your beacons
• Managing all those beacons!

13. Early Solutions
Gimbal
InMarket.com
Swirl (Twitter just invested
$18M in them)
APP Listening Networks Beacon Networks

14. WPP View – Beacon Hotspots

15. APAC - Greater merger of Social with E-Commerce?
WeChat “Shake Nearby” WeChat’s Wallet

16. Path Tracker – Use Case China
Path tracker gives an holistic picture of high traffic area
vs low traffic and high stopping vs low stopping.
*312 BEACONS

17. Path tracker can capture the distribution of time spent for every
shopper in the store
5%
20% 25%
17%
14%
9%
4%
3#
1% 1% 1%
Time in store (mins)
Average time
in store
41 mins
Average spending
(RMB)
105.3

18. Implementation Summary
• 327 Beacons
• Respondents – pre-recruited and handed phone
• The app triggered a survey on store exit
• Heat maps and data analysis was done in-house
• Initial set up was expensive
• Expect cost and time to come down for subsequent projects.

19. Smart-Cart .. Philippines

20. Time Location Movement Reaction Action
Purchase Survey
Proximity + Sensors = holistic picture of a shopper

21. Screenshot from batch.com (provides aggregated reporting on mobile notifications)
List Ease provided by inMarket.com
Proximity + Mobile Messaging

22. Privacy

23. 1. Understanding key moments up to the
moment of purchase
2. Easy to do small scale experiments
3. Multiple uses for beacons - be
creative!
Final Points – be creative!

24. David Wright
David.Wright@kantar.com
Using Proximity Beacons to extract
meaning from offline interactions