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Brands To Interact With Consumers Via Beacons At Auto Show
- Automotive News, Sunday, January 10, 2016 8:59 PM
Visitors to this year's Detroit auto show will get to play a 2016 version of "Pac-Man" -- without the ghosts. That's how the show's organizers describe the way they're using beacons, wireless digital transmitters located around the exhibition hall that can track the movements of show visitors and communicate with them through their smartphones via Bluetooth as they wander the show floor. The technology is growing in popularity as auto show organizers and manufacturers seek more ways for brands to interact with the throngs of spectators on a scale that the product specialists manning the displays never could achieve. Detroit's Cobo Center will be fitted with 30 beacons programmed to interact with the show's smartphone app and help visitors navigate a reconfigured floorplan. App users will see a map of the exhibit floor that's marked with empty red circles. As the users cross a particular area of the show, the circles get checked off to let them know they visited that area.
