Mobile marketer Acuity Mobile and CTM Media Group today announced the release of the City-In-The-Pocket Mobile Marketing Program for NYC Tourism. Launched in New York, it uses 2-way SMS, mobile web and mobile apps. The service delivers city information to tourists, as well as providing marketing opportunities for businesses.
Using Acuity’s eMAP mobile marketing platform, the service allows tourists to text NYCALERTS to 71297 to receive daily text alerts. They can also access a Mobile City Guideby texting CIPNYC to 71297. Or they can visit cipnyc.mobi from their phone.
From the release:
“I am very excited about the launch of these programs. They are part of our overall vision to support our advertisers with an integrated, multi-channel distribution package that reaches the tourist at the Right Time with the Right Medium,” said CTM president Peter Magaro. “The Acuity eMAP mobile marketing platform is the ideal solution for City in the Pocket. It’s content targeting capabilities ensures that visitors get great vacation deals on things they are interested in and maximizes marketing dollars by directing offers to the most valuable customers.”
“We are pleased that CTM Media has selected Acuity Mobile to power the City in the Pocket product line with targeted mobile marketing,” said Doug Stovall, Acuity Mobile Vice President of Sales.
What we think?
This service is a lot more interesting in theory than it is in practice. After exploring the service a little, I discovered that it’s more interested in shifting coupons and ads for bars than it is in offering good information for tourists. Now, that criticism is based on the service as it is now. There’s the infrastructure for a good mobile resource here – it combines low and high tech entry by having a .mobi site and by allowing customers to request SMS updates. It’s just that right now, the content isn’t very good. Tourists can certainly find some deals on things if they already know what they’re looking for, but the service doesn’t offer much in the way of discovery. If it could combine with something along the lines of the Times recently launched Going Out Guide, then we’d have a great money and time saving service for tourists.
