SmartCity Blog

GIS Gives Businesses a Competitive Edge

GIS intelligence about customers, business locations and socioeconomic trends helps companies gain a competitive edge

 

Imagine knowing before launching a marketing campaign in a new neighbourhood that the profile of your customer is already there. Or being able to gain a first mover advantage by selecting a new business location in an up-and-coming neighbourhood based on the socioeconomic trends before your competition moves in driving up real estate values.

As business evolves, getting an edge in the marketplace can be very advantageous. Today, with new technologies popping up and data becoming more readily available, businesses can take advantage of both data and technology to gather valuable intelligence about their customers, business locations and socioeconomic trends.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) marries the art of cartography and strategic decision making by utilizing geo-referenced data (data with location markers attached, e.g. postal code, county, or neighbourhood). This specialized data has been long underutilized in strategic planning and decision making, mostly due to its unavailability. However, this trend is reversing.  Most of today’s demographic and social media data that is being collected is geo referenced. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Microsoft are just a handful of companies that have realized the potential of these specialized data sets.

The days of business leaders using subjective techniques to map key target market characteristics to strategic plans are dwindling.  By utilizing GIS and the most up-to-date quantitative datasets, businesses can take the guess work out of identifying existing and potential customers as well as competitors. In addition, depending on company owned source data, trending, regression and other analysis can be combined with geo referenced public data to provide further insight into your customer base and competition.  

Within the next ten years - because of the ship building contract, the off shore oil and natural gas exploration and the Muskrat Falls project - many businesses will be vying to find their place in Halifax. It is our belief that the businesses which will truly succeed within this expanding marketplace will be the ones that are most familiar with the city and its population. Today in our great city of Halifax the municipal government has been kind enough to open their data sets for anybody who wants them. One of the greatest things about HRM’s data is that much of it is geo referenced. Geo-dem will take full advantage of this data not just in displaying it but also data mining it to explore the true potential of it. 

Analyzing things such as real estate prices, population density, and neighbourhood profiling and general services can be very valuable to businesses at any stage of growth. These are only a few examples in a vast range of options when it comes to business intelligence and Geographic Information Systems.

 

Author: Charles McIlveen

Charles McIlveen is the CEO of GEO-DEM, a Halifax-based consulting company specializing in providing clients with demographic analysis and information needed for effective strategic decision-making. For more information visit www.geo-dem.com.

Augmenting Reality in Halifax

By Samantha Lodge

There’s a reason this video series has SmartCity in the name. Halifax is home to innovative businesses and smart people. Recently, local interactive media company Ad Dispatch sat down with a big US department store and a comic book mogul to negotiate a major marketing deal.

Ad Dispatch takes products and images and connects a virtual experience to that image. It’s all about augmented reality and their augmented way of thinking has landed them the opportunity to create the Avenger marketing campaign. Working with Wal-Mart and Marvel, Ad Dispatch brings the Avenger characters to life. Smart? How about brilliant!

“If there’s an image I can create a virtual experience with it. So all of a sudden they create a whole other opportunity, a whole other product line based on augmented reality,” says Jonathan Burns, VP of Sales at Ad Dispatch.

SmartCity host Craig Layton gets his reality augmented when he meets with Matt Fegan, Director of Operations. Using a tablet computer a standard image of Captain America is transformed into a life size super imposed superhero standing next to Craig.

But that’s not the only way Ad Dispatch expands reality. From games that let you interact with the real world, to bringing a new level of reality to a t-shirt, this Halifax based digital media company keeps ideas fresh and new while bringing a whole new level to marketing and promotion.

President and CEO, Nathan Kroll says it best. “Augmented reality means we add content, value or entertainment to the physical world and physical objects around us. We add value to not just the marketing of the product, but to the product itself.”

Ad Dispatch’s team has a strong tie to Halifax with at least one third of its team graduating from post secondary institutions in the city.

“We’ve assembled a world class team here of 3D artists that have been vetted and approved by Pixar and Disney and Marvel, and they love the stuff that we’re building,” Kroll says about his team.

With local talent and a team that keeps growing the company is keeping up with the opportunities that keep coming its way. Big names like Home Depot and Disney are turning to Ad Dispatch to create a new kind of marketing campaign that focuses on driving customers to the retail level for this unique interactive experience.

Halifax’s digital media industry is growing and attracting international interest. Ad Dispatch is one of the companies getting Halifax’s name on the map and further proving that businesses can set up and stay in Halifax while creating business relationships all over the world. 

 You Might Also Like

• SmartCity Episode 1: Leveraging diversity is smart business
• SmartCity Episode 2: Networking and Collaboration Helps Halifax Grow
• Halifax's ICT, Gaming and Interactive Media sector 

Author: Samantha Lodge

Samantha is the Communications and Marketing Assistant at the Greater Halifax Partnership. She moved from Newfoundland to Halifax to attend university, and ended up rekindling her love of the east coast. She feels that being close to the ocean in a city with so much excitement is the ideal situation – Halifax’s talented music scene is an added bonus!

Powerful Storytelling Builds Brands

By Kim Mosher

At this past Thursday’s Building Our Future event, 250 business people gathered to hear the enigmatic Adman and CBC radio host Terry O’Reilly speak about the power of storytelling. A perfect topic as Terry lives and breathes powerful storytelling, and he’s got the successful advertising career to prove it.

In preparation for the event, it was no secret around the Partnership office that I was (more than) excited to see a favourite author of mine speak, and hearing him in person was fantastic.

Stories Add Value and Meaning to a Brand

Terry spoke about the importance of creating a captivating story to talk about a brand, as “stories add value and meaning. If you're not telling stories, you're missing out on creating enormous value in your marketing".

And, when stories are told well, they are re-told and shared by others, reinforcing the message and reaching a wider audience. In fact, great stories “let you boast about your company without ever boasting about your company,"  said Terry.

Every Business has a Story to Tell

How can storytelling impact your own business? Well, every business has a story, or multiple stories, to tell. Look around and take note: they might be lurking in unlikely places, as “every business has stories hidden in their walls – genuine, real stories,”  said Terry. Often times, businesses are pretty good at telling their story to external audiences, but it’s important to remember your internal audience – employees. They too need to hear the stories and internalize them as their own.

I think that everyone who attended walked away with some salient points that can be applied to their own businesses and enjoyed the enthralling advertising stories that Terry shared. Several brand stories were part of his presentation, including the well-known “I love NY” campaign that was born more than 30 years ago to promote Broadway (something that the wider audience today probably isn’t aware of). It was so powerful that it stuck, and because people could make it their own – think of the iconic image associated with New York – it became legend.

As Terry said, “A powerful story can enthral the mind, nestle into someone's heart and be told over and over again”.

For more information on Terry O’Reilly, please visit his website.

 
Author: Kimberley Mosher

Kimberley Mosher is the Partnership's Internet and Marketing Specialist. Kimberley has a background in marketing strategy and business consulting and specializes in planning, implementing and managing marketing campaigns.