Imagine the Global Positioning System allocating your business an electronic address. Imagine that anyone wanting to do business with you, could at the touch of a screen, navigate to your doorstep.

Imagine then that this address was stored in an electronic telephone and ‘geo-location’ directory on a personal navigation device that more than 1 000 000 owners in South Africa use in their day-to-day travels.

This, then is today’s reality: locating an ATM, a dealership, a hospital, a restaurant or an overnight stop could not be simpler and more purpose driven than this.

Welcome to the world of ‘Places of Interest’ (POI) and corporate geo-location marketing - the equivalent of fitting an electronic telephone directory to the dashboard of a car. Business in South Africa, never slow to exploit a useful marketing tool, has joined the growing queue to list themselves on the corporate ‘POI’ master map.

“There is no better way of marketing your business in the GPS environment,” says Lourens Botha of eWheels, the company behind the drive to collect commercial POI content for the corporate market in South Africa. In addition the trend is spreading to the mobile phone market.”

Yet, how does a GPS locate a Point of Interest on a digital map? Using contact data collected and collated by eWheels from clients in the corporate market, MapIT links address, contact details, and GPS co-ordinates for retail, franchise, and chain store outlets to an imbedded point in our digital master mapset. These co-ordinates form a virtual ‘cross hair’ on the map installed onto a Personal Navigation Device. When selected from a menu by a motorist browsing various pre-defined POI categories, each cross hair generates a destination geo-located at the precise street address of the business.

“After that, it is simply a matter of touching a screen or pressing a button, and the GPS will take you there,” says Botha. “This search and ‘go to’ function is linked to ‘geo-location, a PND’s ability to search the master map for an electronic address allocated by the Global Positioning System to each POI imbedded in the master.

“The presence of a POI in the mapset says that your business is open, moving with the times and ready for business; a powerful statement and a highly visible branding opportunity.”

“The next step in the development of corporate geo-location marketing and content,” says Botha, “is the ability not only to locate a supplier, but to call that supplier by simply touching a menu option on your PND. Bluetooth will instantly connect you via your Smartphone to that supplier. So now, not only are you able to look up the restaurant just around the corner, you can also call them to make a reservation.”

But, as the TV commercials say, ‘that’s not all.’ Looking beyond instant location and communication, the next phase will include personal navigation linked to web browsing. Utilising cell phone GPRS technology, a 3-G connection for example, a ‘mobile warrior’ will be able to locate a restaurant, and then hop onto its website to browse the menu.

“It is quite simple,” explains Botha, “before I actually phone them to make that reservation, I click on a link to their website imbedded in the Point of Interest. My device will then leapfrog onto their website. I take a look, decide that they‘ve got a really nice menu, press “call” to reserve a table, and then touch the screen to activate navigation to that restaurant. My GPS will navigate me right there for a good meal.”

The search and locate function for POI on the master mapset also cross-pollinates thousand of times daily with ‘active maps’ on websites. Using these inter-active maps, consumers can search for a neighbourhood store, locate its street address in relation to where they live or work, and then plot a direct route to the store.

“This search, browse and locate function – whether on a GPS or a website - will apply to any business that lists their business with us - hotels, hospitals, goods and services, even cinema or theatre reservations,” explains Botha.

If less than five years ago a GPS was a device used by a 4x4 camper to locate an overnight camp, the rapid growth of the personal navigator market has seen the number of map licenses issued by MapIT burgeon from less than 100-thousand users two years ago to more than 1 000 000 users in the current year.

“Where a GPS was once the domain of enthusiasts, consumers today want a lot more than just street information. The explosion of interest in content is a response to the demand by consumers for much more than just straight street-by-street navigation data,” says Botha. 

eWheels is MapIT’s licensed data partner for the commercialisation of mapset content in Southern Africa.