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Navteq's Traffic.com offers mobile gift pack for holiday season

Navteq's Traffic.com is helping holiday shoppers give the gift of real-time traffic information with a free Traffic Gift Pack.

The gift pack features three personal mobile traffic services that go with friends and family whenever they hit the road. The Traffic Gift Pack is available to view, download, print and share for free at http://www.traffic.com/gift.

"The goal of Traffic.com is to provide people with a very effective and easy-to-use means of learning what's happening on the roadways," said Chris Rothey, vice president of connected markets for Navteq, Wayne, PA.

"The world is realizing we can no longer build our way out of congestion problems, so our mobile platform helps people utilize existing infrastructure in a better way," he said. "This promotion is designed to get the word out about our mobile initiatives, with the goal of getting folks to recommend it to their friends to increase overall usage of the site."

Gift-givers can download a printable stocking-stuffer.

"We want to engage consumers with a compelling campaign to help them give the gift of knowledge to their friends," Mr. Rothey said. "People really hate traffic, they hate being stuck in it, so what better gift than to give them ways to get around that.

"Especially during this tough holiday season and it's a great gift for friends, and it's free," he said.

Consumers can get their holiday gift-giving started with this package of real-time, personal mobile services by Traffic.com, a traffic-only Web site for online and mobile traffic information.

Navteq claims that a September 2008 report from comScore Media Metrix ranked Traffic.com the No. 1 such service nationwide.

The gift package features three personal mobile traffic services.

The first is the Traffic.com Hotline, 1-866-MY-TRAFC (1-866-698-7232), a toll-free traffic hotline that puts updates about traffic conditions as close as a speed-dial button on any mobile phone.

Traffic.com's mobile Web site at http://mobi.traffic.com offers information about traffic hotspots -- everything from travel times and vehicle speeds to delay times and accident reports -- via Web-enabled wireless devices.

Traffic.com Text Alerts are a free SMS text messaging service, which alerts you to delays on the roadways of major cities across the country. Carrier fees may apply.

Navteq is a provider of digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications and government and business services.

Navteq creates the digital maps and map content that power navigation and location-based services around the world.

"We seen a lot of adoption on a number of different fronts, via voice communications, automated alerts, SMS capapbilities -- text us route names to a short codes and we'll respond," Mr. Rothey said. "Our mobile Web site at http://mobi.traffic.com has general information as well as specific routes.

"People who visit Traffic.com immediately see the value of accessing traffic informatiom on the road -- it's far more useful, so we've seen good adoption of our mobile platforms," he said.

Mobile advertising is Traffic.com's primary monetization strategy.

"You will never hear from us without an advertisement," Mr. Rothey said. "We have ads on our mobile Web site, 10-sec pre-roll voice ads, and very short SMS ads at the bottom of text messages, with click-to-call or click-to-WAP depending on what advertiser want, as well as HTML email.

"We do have ad partners delivering messages, which have been very effective," he said. "Consumers are grateful it doesn't cost them anything for this, which transfers to good will to the benefit of advertisers -- everything we offer is ad-supported."

Advertisers are said to flocking to the platform.

"The mobile environment attracts a whole different array of advertisers, but some stand out -- businesses such as hotels and restaurant chains are obviously naturally fits, but we see the whole spectrum, even sports teams," Mr. Rothey said.

"We have location-based advertising capabilities, and we expect to bring location-based capabilities to many of our mobile services very shortly, which will allow us to be even more specific about delivering ads using someone's granular location information," he said.

"We want our advertisers to be extremely relevant to the consumer and help them make it an appreciated service to the consumer, instead of annoying. That's our goal, to make mobile advertising an enjoyable experience."