Tag: cars

The Mobile World Conference (WMC) took place recently in Barcelona and proved once again that Telematics/Infotainment (T/I) is increasingly sharing its technology infrastructure with Mobile.  DOOH is also connected with Mobile and T/I.  Here are three key points marketers should keep in mind about the telematics-mobile relationship:

1) Location based services (LBS) and mobile social are driving innovation.  As phones increasingly incorporate GPS and become more location-enabled, developers will create more location aware applications.  Social Mobile is the logical offshoot of this technology and offers users, advertisers, and brands unique challenges and opportunities.  Thomas Hallauer writes in Telematics, “by combining location and social networking, the mobile industry will be able to tempt advertisers with reliable profiling from a very extensive and rich source of consumer information, as well as precise targeting at the mobile consumer market.”  There are many large players in this space looking advance this capability in a time when new revenue streams are much needed. Continue reading “Mobile’s little brother is catching up”

The economic perils facing the country are on the minds of the Lab’s practice leads. Contractions in aggregate spending are clearly going to impact consumers and marketers in Digital Out of Home, Gaming and Mobile.

As the person who focuses on Telematics/Infotainment (T/I), I know this space too will suffer in a down economy. SiriusXM stock has been crushed because of a combined slowdown in unit sales tied to new cars, and a slowdown in unit sales tied to consumers wanting to add the service to their existing cars. Sales of personal navigation devices (PNDs) heading into the holiday season will slow both because of the economy and because of the move by more and more automakers in developing their own “in-car” solutions. In short, slow downs and retrenchments will be seen across the spectrum. Continue reading “Will telematics be hit by the recession?”

Telematics, like many of our other categories that we cover here at the Emerging Media Lab, is constantly evolving.  Our Mobile and Social Media practice leads see change on an almost daily basis. Telematics/Infotainment, while still new to most, is showing growth and change on a regular pace.  This month I thought it might be more helpful to single-out a few new items rather than focus on an singular topic.

This coming year and beyond will continue to show an expansion of in integration, services and connectivity.  Industry resources show that over 58% of new cars will have iPod connections available from the factory.  Non iPod interface will come by way of a USB interface.  Bluetooth will continue to have a strong presence in the car’s of 2009.  The expanding adoption of this into more cars will take it from 55% to 82% in 2009.  The result will be more cars with Bluetooth and more features available to the consumer. Continue reading “iPods in half of cars and car keys for teens”