Chili?s Grill & Bar ran a location-based advertising campaign to test mobile?s effectiveness in driving consumers to its bricks-and-mortar restaurants.

Chili?s tapped Navteq?s LocationPoint Advertising platform for the trial showed that up to 39 percent of consumers responded to mobile calls-to-action, including click-to-navigate to the advertised retailer. The goal of Chili?s campaign was to convert click-throughs into paying customers. 

?Chili?s campaign featured teasers, smaller ads such as banners that appear in the various applications and devices in which we advertise,? said Christopher Rothey, Wayne, PA-based vice president of advertising at Navteq. ?We partner with a number of publishers, from a  social networking app or a navigation app to a mapping service or personal navigation device?it runs entire spectrum.

?Chili?s campaign has appeared across all of that,? he said. ?The consumer clicks through to a more detailed information page, which can include some sort of offer or coupon and various calls-to-action.

?Typically users can click to call, click to map, click to navigate, click to route me or click to mobile Web sites, which is not as useful as providing opportunities such as calling or routing that drives consumers right to the store front.?

Chili's Grill & Bar is a restaurant chain with more than 1,400 casual dining restaurants, mostly located in the United States and Canada.

Navteq, a subsidiary of Nokia, is a provider of maps, traffic and location data enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising.

Chili?s on point
Launched 18 months ago, LocationPoint ad services harness Navteq?s location content and capabilities to pinpoint where consumers are, deliver ads and calls-to-action within a few feet of advertised points of purchase and guide them to the merchant?s doorstep.

Navteq claims that built-in calls to action such as click to map and click to navigate bolster consumer engagement with ads and drive traffic to advertised locations.

?Chili?s campaign encouraged people to come in store?they wanted to drive people to local establishments,? Mr. Rothey said. ?The power of location-based advertising is creating a virtual storefront.

?Branding is not its forte, it?s really designed to extend retailers? storefront a couple-mile radius around the location, essentially inviting that person to come in and transact, encouraging folks that are nearby and providing some type of value to come in and complete a transaction,? he said.

The findings of the latest U.S. trial featuring Chili?s cap a months-long U.S.-focused trial of Navteq LocationPoint that showed advertisers posted a click-through rate high of 2.49 percent?more than 13 times the 0.19 average of online banner ads, according to Forrester Research.

The Navteq trial found that of those consumers who clicked on location-intelligent ads, 39 percent clicked through for additional details, including turn-by-turn or step-by-step directions to the advertised merchant?s retail location.

The U.S. findings echo a Navteq trial in Europe that resulted in a 7 percent CTR and a 39 percent conversion to ?click to map.?

That trial featured McDonald?s ads offering deals on burgers to mobile users as they approached McDonald?s restaurants in Finland (see story).

In addition to targeting specific demographics such as age, gender and socio-economics, location targeting helps brands reach mobile users who are in a geographic position to buy, according to Navteq.

?Every campaign, whether it?s a trial campaign or a paid campaign, is getting similar results, which is confirming suspicions?the thing that drives far better results is location,? Mr. Rothey said. ?We believe advertising on a mobile device without a location element will prove less appealing to advertisers.

?It is the location-targeting element that makes a mobile campaign really sing,? he said. ?Location-targeted campaigns perform better than standard mobile CTRs and dramatically better than online CTRs.

?It can increase the relevancy of advertising when users? location is taken into account.?