Physical Web in London buses

Proxama , one of the leaders in the field of contactless mobile marketing, in close cooperation with Google and Exterion Media , Europe’s largest privately-held advertising business company (Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising), launched its first Physical Web network in London based on the eddystone standard. The service, called MyStop, allows passengers to receive real-time information about the bus route, as well as set a notification of the approach to the selected stop. The service is available to users on Android and iOS with the Google Chrome browser installed.

At the moment, the service works in more than 100 buses. Brands and companies will be able to use the bluetooth network of beacons to advertise and attract consumers through the progressive service of the MyStop web application. Eddystone greatly enhances the effectiveness of such an advertising campaign, because it allows any smartphone with a Chrome browser to interact with the Physical Web without having to install an additional application. It is also worth noting that London accounts for more than half of all bus trips in the UK. This greatly increases the possible scale of the advertising campaign and the potential for return on investment.

John Worley, marketing director at Proxama: “Proxama has long seen potential in beacons. The ability to deliver context-sensitive messages and content to a certain age group has been the holy grail for brands for many years. We cooperated with Google to provide our TapPoint platform with Physical Web support, which means that brands no longer need to worry about whether a consumer uses their application or not, just connecting to the Internet is enough. With the help of Proxama, brands can deploy their advertising campaigns, using beacons, for a large number of consumers without technical difficulties. In the coming months, we look forward to further deploying the system in London and the UK on transportation networks and high-traffic areas such as shopping centers, stadiums and urban centers.

Mike Wood, director of product strategy and innovation for Exterion Medaia: “It’s clear that Eddystone and Physical Web create exciting opportunities for brands to interact with consumers. We have added support for Eddystone to our network of bus beacons and are happy to see how brands have taken advantage of it. Along with our By recent Fox and Shazam Kung Fu Panda 3 announcements, this is another indicator that bluetooth beacon technology will receive significant interest and growth in 2016.
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Google Chrome is the first web browser with Physical Web support. Opera, also received support for Physical Web c transition to the code base Chromium 49. It is expected that FireFox and Microsft also implement support for this technology.