Tritech Media, the media technology innovator controlled by the Kirsh family, has announced the acquisition of an effective 51% interest in Ionizr, the pioneer in real-time proximity advertising technology in South Africa.
Wayne Venter, CEO and founder of Ionizr, retains a 49% interest.
Precision marketing employs digital technology to pinpoint customised content to targeted consumers. Ionizr is the first company in South Africa that combines technology, Internet of Things, analytics, marketing and digital media to provide advanced data-driven location based marketing and advertising services.
Through its proprietary technology, Ionizr provides powerful analytics-driven location-based mobile engagement tools for mall owners, retail tenants and advertisers at large.
This is achieved as follows:
* Ionizr is able to anonymously track consumer behaviour in shopping malls and retailers through its ability to fingerprint and identify mobile devices. It achieves this through its novel node technology, which doubles up as a proximity sensor and provides free WiFi. The software platform provides targeted advertising and other personalised content. Anonymous data is particularly relevant to mall owners which enables them to understand where consumers are dwelling thus enabling them to influence the flow of consumer traffic with in-time mall marketing.
* The thrust of Ionizr’s software and technology is its ability to monetise free WiFi, which is becoming a much sought after service for consumers wherever they visit. When consumers access the Ionizr WiFi service, the technology captures key consumer information, which then serves as the vehicle for targeted advertising and promotional material. The targeted advertising enables retailers and brands to promote their products and services to the right people at the right time.
* A further novelty of the Ionizr service is that once a consumer signs up, that consumer can be engaged with wherever Ionizr has deployed its technology without the consumer having to connect to a WiFi network. This enables advertising and promotional campaigns to be conducted seamlessly across multiple locations.
* Geo-fenced locations are used to trigger personalised advertising and engagement with the consumer via push notifications, emails and SMSs.
* Multiple simultaneous campaigns can be active at the same time and allows the mall and tenants to provide segmented engagement to various targeted consumers at the same time, in contrast to the current “single” campaign model. Campaigns are dynamic and time relevant. Limited high value inventory or promotions can be targeted and the successful conversion tracked.
* Ionizr is integrated with social media that allows a consumer’s in-mall experience to go viral.
* With Ionizr’s predictive analytics and machine learning features of consumer behaviour patterns as they move though the mall, retailers can target advertising and promotions to alter existing behaviour patterns.
William Kirsh, CEO and founder of Tritech Media, comments: “Our investment in Ionizr supports our first mover advantage in precision marketing which up until now has been focussed on providing turnkey corporate loyalty capabilities. As the media industry moves away from broad-stroke traditional media to measurable precise digital communications, we are ideally placed to be the industry leader.
“Location-based marketing services are growing at an extraordinary rate and are anticipated to rise from US$10 billion currently to around US$18 billion globally by 2019. Ionizr also gives us an in-store presence where 90% of retail purchase decisions are made.”
Ionizr has developed strategic relationships with digital marketing agencies which service 242 shopping malls in South Africa that will exclusively promote and sell the Ionizr platform as well as exclusively produce mobile engagement campaigns for Ionizr to enable rapid adoption of the platform. Ionizr is already operable in a number of key shopping malls across the country and achieved results ahead of expectations.
Wayne Venter, CEO and founder of Ionizr ,comments: “We built a global leading platform that helps retailers understand their visitors as well as engage with them. Our platform offers a powerful marketing and analytics tool that generates additional revenue, drives customer loyalty, delivers optimal returns on investment and provide valuable insights.
“We’re excited about developing our platform as a Tritech Media portfolio company, harnessing group synergies as we meet very encouraging demand growth.”
