cohn icsc recon ibeacon program

ICSC iBeacon Program RESULTS & ANALYSIS

JUNE 12, 2015

OVERVIEW

COPYRIGHT © 2015 COHN

GENESIS OF THE PROGRAM

As beacon technology continues to gain momentum in the retail real estate industry, COHN

and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) saw the opportunity to provide an

interactive program that showcased beacon capabilities at the 2015 RECon conference - the

largest retail and commercial real estate conference in the world.

Together with COHN, ICSC launched a pilot program featuring more than 100 beacons at

seven Las Vegas locations and six RECon and attendee-sponsored events. In an effort to

legitimize and expand the program, we reached out to a network of technologically-

advanced industry “family and friends” to participate, ensuring that the inaugural program

was diverse, strategic and comprehensive. Following is a global overview of the program

and a breakdown of our results.

OVERVIEW

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PROGRAM GOALS

• Further position ICSC as the industry thought leader in the area of digital and mobile

marketing within the retail real estate industry.

• Introduce beacon technology as a real world application to an industry that would directly

benefit from the use of beacons - retailers, shopping centers, cities, etc.

• Introduce a new messaging platform that cuts through the conference clutter and stands

out in a sea of sponsored messaging and traditional ads.

• Achieve a 30% engagement rate.

• Generate $10,000 in revenues to cover program hard costs and management.

OVERVIEW

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PARTICIPANTS

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PROGRAM LOGISTICS

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PRODUCT VENDOR

BEACON HARDWARE ESTIMOTE

BEACON CMS PUSHMOTE

BEACON STRATEGY & EXECUTION COHN


PROGRAM PROMOTION

In an effort to maximize our user pool, ICSC promoted both the updated ICSC mobile

application and beacon program through a variety of channels:

• Press release distribution

• ICSC emails

• Beacon-specific messaging - one email

• ICSC mobile app messaging - all RECon emails

• Window clings at the Las Vegas Convention Center

• ICSC blog post

• ICSC social channels (115k followers) - daily to weekly across all channels

• Full ad in Shopping Centers Today May issue

• Digital slides at RECon keynotes and educational sessions

• Featured YouTube video on ICSC television

• Shopping Centers Today “Daily” newspaper during RECon

AWARENESS

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PLACEMENT

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BEACONS WERE ALSO PLACED AT THE ENCORE BEACH CLUB, WESTGATE HOTEL,

WYNN HOTEL, CAESARS PALACE, AND CHATEAU NIGHT CLUB AT PARIS HOTEL.


INSTALLATION

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INSTALLATION PHOTO GALLERY

COHN, PUSHMOTE & CAESARS PALACE TEAMS PLACING BEACONS AT CAESARS PALACE

The execution of the RECon Beacon program required a

robust team, including:

• COHN: Integrated marketing and digital agency based in

Denver, CO responsible for strategy, messaging, installation

and program management.

• Lisa Wieting - VP Integration & Planning

• Justin Kutner - Digital Director

• Mike Margiotta - Digital Strategist

• Samantha Drake - Digital Strategiest

• Pushmote: Beacon CMS provider, made up of a team of

three founders currently participating in the Austin TechStars

program. The entire team came to Las Vegas to help

manage the messaging platform and monitor attendee

engagement.

• Tarik Ozket - CEO

• Taha Ozket - CTO

• Gokay Hamamci - CMO

• Andy Aguiluz - TechStar representative


INSTALLATION

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Placements had to be both strategic and practical, ensuring we

were allowing the beacons space to work while protecting

them from being removed or damaged.

ESCALATORS AT CAESARS PALACE

BRIXMOR BOOTH

MAIN HALL ENTRANCE (PRE-CONFERENCE START)


INSTALLATION

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JLL BOOTH JLL BOOTH


INSTALLATION

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RECON WELCOME RECEPTION - ENCORE

RECON WELCOME RECEPTION - ENCORE


INSTALLATION

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The Las Vegas Convention Center is 3.2 million square feet; 2

million square feet of that is exhibit space. In order to be able

to jump to action, we set up “mission control” in the Grand

Lobby where we were stationed 10 hours a day for four days.


MESSAGING

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MESSAGE AND ENGAGEMENT EXAMPLES


MESSAGING

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MESSAGING

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GLOBAL FINDINGS


BEACONS AT CONFERENCES

ICSC became one of the first major conferences in the world to integrate beacon

technology as a content vehicle for its attendees and the first to execute a beacon program

at the Las Vegas Convention Center - which features 2 million square feet of exhibit space.

We also were the first group to integrate beacons into several Las Vegas hotels and casinos,

including Caesars Palace, Wynn, Encore, Westgate Hotel and Paris.

PIONEER PROGRAM

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BEACONS BY THE NUMBERS

The biggest hurdle for a beacon program is finding an established mobile app to host the

program. For the RECon Beacon program, we were able to leverage the ICSC mobile

application - an app with 20,000 downloads and a solid user base that peaks during RECon.

That said, there are several factors that impacted the ‘actual’ user pool. Following is a funnel

that shows how we got from ‘potential’ user pool to ‘actual’ user pool:

THE NUMBERS

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RECON ATTENDEES 35,000 - 40,000

TOTAL APP DOWNLOADS 20,000

UPDATED APP 6,000

BLUETOOTH 1,700

ACTUAL USER POOL

2,068: TOTAL ENGAGEMENTS


With an ‘actual’ pool of 1,700 people (those who had both the latest version of the app as

well as bluetooth activated), there was a total of 2,068 swipes from 769 unique users. That

averages out to be a:

45% engagement rate So, how does that compare with other digital content/communication channels?

ENGAGEMENT

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CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT*

EMAILOPEN RATE: 22%

CTR: 3.15%

TWITTER ADS PROMOTED TWEETS: 1 - 3%

FACEBOOK ADS NEWSFEED ADS: 1 - 2.5%

LINKEDIN ADSADS: .025%

SPONSORED UPDATES: 0.6%

ONLINE ADSDISPLAY ADS: .20%

SEARCH: 1 - 5%

THE BIG NUMBER

*Engagement rates are an overall average based on several different “industry standard” reports from a variety of sources.


ENGAGEMENT FREQUENCY

Not only did 45% of our ‘actual’ pool engage, but 254 of our unique users (33%) engaged

multiple times:

ENGAGEMENT

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NUMBER OF SWIPES UNIQUE USERS

2 140

3 61

4 29

5 11

6 7

7 2

8 2

9 2


ENGAGEMENT

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TOP TEN RANKINGS

Location Engagements

Registration1 441

Roaming Beacon1 (carried on a person) 271

Roaming Beacon2 (carried on a person) 210

Registration2 201

Westgate Hotel (Commander Rorke Keynote) 198

South Hall 196

Company Booth (Central Hall) 89

Starbucks (4 hour morning window) 56

Central Hall 52

Lucky’s Restaurant 45


WHAT WE ACHIEVED

RESULTS

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• Further position ICSC as the industry thought leader in the area of digital and mobile

marketing within the retail real estate industry.

- All program participants applauded the forward-thinking program and at the end of the

conference we were able to generate the following results:

✓ Raise $1,000 for the ICSC Foundation through a beacon program that donated $10

for every “swipe” at an industry fundraiser.

✓ Build a partnership with Caesars Palace that allowed us to leverage rewards and

offers for our attendees.

✓ Increase social media engagement due to “beacon buzz” being talked about on all

ICSC social channels.

• Introduce beacon technology as a real world application to an industry that would

directly benefit from the use of beacons - retailers, shopping centers, cities, etc.

- 100 beacons

- 7 Las Vegas locations

- 9 messaging partners


WHAT WE ACHIEVED

RESULTS

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• Introduce a new messaging platform that cuts through the conference clutter and

stands out in a sea of sponsored messaging and traditional ads.

- Targeted users with a custom message based on time and location

- Provided immediate calls-to-action

- High engagement rate compared to other digital and traditional platforms

- A novel/new platform that generated buzz and attention from attendees

• Achieve a 30% engagement rate.

- 45% engagement rate

• Generate $10,000 in revenues to cover program hard costs and management.

- $21,000 in revenue (funds generated from selling beacon messages to participants)

- $1,000 in donations toward the ICSC Foundation


WHAT WE LEARNED

A 45% engagement rate is a solid average, but not all beacons are created equal. On the

following pages, we will take a look at what lead to higher success rates and what lessons

we can learn for future beacon initiatives.

• Make it easy to connect the dots. Beacons work better when users could connect the

dots between the message and their surroundings.

• Clear calls-to-action boosts engagements. Similar to many online advertising platforms, a

clear, relevant and engaging call-to-action boosts engagement.

• Creativity is rewarded. Finding a balance between creativity and business objectives

leads to a more successful beacon application.

• There can be too much of a good thing.

- Locations that see a large volume of people in a dense setting can get diluted as people

can literally become physical barriers, shielding the beacon messaging.

- When competing beacons are placed in close proximity, the messages are impacted

because the broadcast radius’ for the beacons must be set tighter to ensure that they

aren’t overlapping.

TAKEAWAYS

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WHAT WE LEARNED

• Catch them when they are in the mood. Running from meeting to meeting (especially in

a 3.2 million square foot convention center) is not be the best time to try and engage

someone. It’s important to think about linger time and what the user will be doing in that

location at the time of message deployment.

• Beacon thieves are among us. Whether curious bystanders or suspicious security,

beacons beckon people to take them down.

• Awareness is still low. Business Insider recently stated that beacons are just now coming

out of pilot phase. It is clear that beacons are a new frontier, which presents both

challenges and opportunities for beacon programs. On the up side, the market hasn’t

been saturated so there is an opportunity to put a stake in the ground as a beacon

pioneer. The challenge is to communicate the program in a clear and meaningful way to

build a strong user base.

TAKEAWAYS

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THANK YOU!

COHN, INC. 2881 N. SPEER BLVD. DENVER, CO 80211 COHNMARKETING.COM @COHNMARKETING FACEBOOK.COM/COHNMARKETING

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