This is a hardware idea and I would have no clue how to execute it. So I'm going to give the idea away.<p>The problem with physical advertising is that there's no way to measure its effectiveness. For example, I live in Boston, and currently, H&M is advertising at the T-stop near my house. The last time I was at the stop I was thinking "how the hell do they know if that ad is <i>actually</i> sending customers to their stores"? This idea would solve this problem using two small hardware widgets.<p>The first would be on or near the sign at the T stop. It would pick up, and identify unique cell phone signals within 20-50ft. If it finds a new cellphone, it would record the visitor.<p>The second widget would be at the H&M store in town (or at all of them!). Whenever a new phone walks into the store, the widget would cross-check the unique signal with a DB and determine wether the user saw an ad this week/month/year.<p>With years of data, one could measure which ads are effective and which ones are not.<p>Thoughts?<p>P.S. There are two assumptions* I made:
1. Each cellphone emits a unique signal.
2. This unique signal can be picked up and detected with fairly straightforward hardware.<p>*I confirmed these assumptions with a friend who's a hardware engineer at the FCC.
There's a problem with this. On GSM at least, my understanding is that the unique identifier (the IMSI) is rarely sent over the air, and more often an encrypted counterpart is sent.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mobile_Subscriber_Identity" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mobile_Subscriber...</a><p>You'll have a lot of problems with this, both with uniquely identifying subscribers, and ensuring that you are not violating any privacy laws.<p>Check out OpenBTS and OpenBSC for basic code and feasibility stuff.
"no way to measure effectiveness of physical advertising"<p>With the largest exception being internet advertising there isn't a good way to really see if an advert is physically bringing people into a store.<p>Advertising can lead to purchasing decisions but the general traditional purpose is to establish an emotional relationship between the consumer and a brand and or to raise awareness about said brand.<p>Examples:<p>Campaign 1 Coca Cola
Refreshing, new drink that you enjoy with your friends and quences your thirst during the summer (focusing on emotional relationship)<p>Campaign 2 Truth.org
Smoking is bad! You're going to die! Rah Rah Rah! (focusing on awareness)<p>Campaigns were made up fyi<p>They have ways to measure how these messages are received. In terms of the purchasing decision process, advertising won't really affect the consideration aspect; marketing will hit that harder which is where you'll find people "actually [getting] sent to their stores".<p>I would agree with the person who posted earlier saying you should expand your idea to see how cell phones can affect the advertising industry in new ways entirely; you're on a good track and if you want help let me know!<p>Source: Advertising guy
It might help to broaden the question to: how can mobile devices provide meaningful information to businesses? With this, you've expanded the realm of use from just quantifying ad efficacy to all activities a mobile device user might pursue. Perhaps there is a way to incorporate mobile internet use, cell phone use and physical location into a meaningful picture for the business, to help understand not only how many are responding to ads, but who they are - other interests/buying habits, other stores frequented, events surrounding decision to enter store/make purchase. Rather than a device owned by H&M, why not a service provided to all retail establishments?
This seems like a clear privacy violation to me.<p>It may not in this case, but when you consider that data like this has its way of getting out to other people and used in ways not originally intended. Imagine your employer being able to pay for access to a database that has your complete location history as captured by such devices.
There's a third, much more important, assumption: you're assuming that the marketers <i>want</i> to know the conversion numbers. We, being internet nerds, want to measure everything. But brand advertisers may not want/need to.