If you keep all of your contacts in Google like I do, you might be interested in seeing a map showing their location. Tech weblog Digital Inspiration shows how you can use their script to connect to your Google account and display a map of your contacts in Google Maps or Google Earth.
You’ll need to copy the spreadsheet to your Google Drive account. Inside the spreadsheet you’ll see a custom menu labelled as Google Contacts. Click on that, choose Initialize, and authorize the script to run. When that is done click again on the Google Contacts menu and choose Generate KML file. The file will be generated and automatically emailed to your Gmail address.
If you have Google Earth installed you can just open the file on your computer to view the map but if you’d prefer to use online Google Maps you’ll just need to upload the file and then copy the link into Google Maps. You can use for example Dropbox.
You’ll see a standard Google map with all of your contacts that have an address listed on their contact entry. For me it’s just fun, but for some of you it might be a simple geomarketing tool to visualize customers location and do some simple analysis.
source: Digital Inspirations
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Finnish developer Rovio has partnered with McDonald’s China to launch a new location-based promotional Angry Birds campaign. Gamers will be able to unlock a variety of content, such as game modes, stages and power-ups depending on which McDonald’s restaurant they are visiting in China. Taking it one step further, players will also be able to vote for their favorite McDonald’s branch in China, and the branch with the most popular votes will see a gigantic slingshot attached to McDonald’s famous golden arches.
Paul Chen, general manager for Rovio China, said: “With this campaign, we are bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds, with the in-game experience complementing the 1500 completely branded physical locations in a new, surprising way for our fans in China.”
The campaign is a really cool example of integration of different media: TV commercial to introduce the story along with the customised game, which features in-game advertising and is available on both mobile and desktop devices. The campaign also includes in-store promotions, on-line advertising, social and outdoor media.
It’s cool that finally location aspect of marketing is coming to mainstream!!!
source: Mashable
