Qualcomm Retail Solutions Inc. GIMBAL PLATFORM DIGITAL INSIGHTS INTO THE PHYSICAL WORLD The Advantages of Gimbal for Retailers, Brands and Application Developers Revision 1 November 2013 1
Table of Contents Summary........ 3 Gimbal Overview What Goes into Location and Proximity- Based Awareness?...3 Gimbal Manager How Do I Set Up Location and Proximity- Based Awareness?.4 Geofence Is My Customer Close to a Relevant Location?.4 Proximity How Do I Locate the Customer in My Place of Business?..5 Communicate How Do I Deliver Relevant Content to My Customer?..6 Analytics How Many Customers Have Visited?.6 Privacy and Security How Safe Is My Customer s Data?.7 Conclusion........ 7 2
Summary The Gimbal platform enables venues, retailers, brands, advertisers, out- of- home networks and mobile- app developers to engage end- users with real- time engagements based on their location and proximity, with the security and privacy they demand. Now that many consumers have a smart, connected device at their side almost constantly, Gimbal s capabilities set the stage for enriching mobile experiences and capturing digital insights of users in the physical world. With Gimbal, mobile- app developers can enable their applications to be more relevant and useful, allowing businesses opportunities to deepen their knowledge of their customers, and increase customer engagement and loyalty. Through personalized content, these opt- in scenarios are possible: A shopper looking at dresses in the women s department receives a digital coupon for a matching pair of her favorite brand of shoes Fans at a sporting event get notifications to head inside from the tail- gaiting area 10- minutes prior to kick off, or attendees receive an offer for a free drink with the purchase of a meal at the concession stand nearest their seat Visitors at an art museum get virtual tours by receiving multimedia content to their device, augmenting the experience, and describing the works of art closest to them and suggesting related pieces Users passing beacon- enabled locations receive individualized engagements on their mobile phone for a nearby store As commercially appealing as these scenarios are to both businesses and their customers, they require the kind of coordination that comes only with Gimbal s end- to- end platform. One- off products and point solutions continually pop up in the mobile location landscape with individual functions geofencing, beacons, communication but Gimbal is the only unified offering with all of those functions and more incorporated into one offering. Retailers, brands, advertisers and developers can use Gimbal- enabled applications to communicate with ios and Android devices based on context and send the right engagements at the proper time in the buying cycle or user experience. This paper describes the location and proximity functions available in Gimbal along with the advantages for venues, retailers, brands, advertisers and developers. Gimbal Overview What Goes into Our Platform The Gimbal platform makes it possible for retailers, brands, venues, advertisers and developers to engage their users with relevant, timely and personalized communication sent to their mobile devices to bridge the digital and physical worlds. The platform is built around three main concepts: Location Where are the customers? Proximity What are the customers near? Interest What is important to the customers? The components of Gimbal s platform include macro- location geofencing, micro- location Bluetooth low- energy beacons, communication service, analytics tools and Gimbal Manager. Using these features alone or in combination, brands, retailers, advertisers and venues can increase customer engagement, sales and loyalty. Business Intelligence reports that consumers are much more likely to respond to context- triggered information and offers, with 60% of users who receive beacon- triggered content opening and engaging with it significantly more than with traditional methods. Gimbal Manager How Do I Set Up Location and Proximity- Based Awareness? 3
Available as both a Web portal at https://manager.gimbal.com/ and a set of APIs, Gimbal Manager is the tool for managing, provisioning, controlling and reporting on Gimbal- enabled applications. Developers can implement one, some or all of the modular functions displayed in the Gimbal Manager portal, depending on what they already have in place and how the user experience of their application grows (see Figure 1). The layout and ease of use of Gimbal Manager demonstrates the end- to- end structure of Gimbal a uniquely comprehensive way for businesses to build location and proximity- based awareness and engagement into their relationships with customers. The functions in Gimbal Manager represent the different capabilities required in contextual awareness, and only Gimbal encompasses all of these capabilities in a single, unified and easy- to- use offering. Geofence - Is My Customer Close to a Relevant Location? A geofence is a virtual enclosure that a developer sets up around a geographic area in the real world; for example, a store, a street, a parking lot or a plaza (see Figure 2). Geofencing is a macro- location technology for areas with a radius of 50 meters or greater. When customers opt- in to turn on Gimbal features, a Gimbal geofence can tell the application when they enter (i.e., breach the geofence ), how long they dwell there and when they leave. A business can leverage this to send relevant, real- time notifications and content. Mobile- app developers submit details about the application that will run on customers mobile devices. They then obtain the client and server API keys required for the mobile app to interact with Gimbal Manager. Figure 2 - Geofences Support for multiple radios For greater accuracy with lower power consumption, Gimbal uses a combination of GPS, Wi- Fi, cellular along with proprietary algorithms to manage and detect geofences. Unlike other products, Gimbal allows applications to use geofences while in the background, with minimal impact to the battery life of the mobile device. Figure 1 - Gimbal Manager Radial and polygonal geofences The world is full of non- circular areas parks, stadiums, school campuses and more so Gimbal allows businesses to draw geofences of their own preferred shape to help reduce false- positives, or information not 4
relevant to that user (see Figure 3) unlike other offerings. departments, sections and aisles, both indoors and outdoors. 1 With Gimbal Proximity, businesses place beacons where they want to mark points of engagement with customers (see Figure 4). The beacons broadcast Bluetooth Smart (also known as Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE) signals with a maximum range of approximately 50 meters. When a Gimbal- enabled application on an opted- in customer s mobile device detects the signal from a beacon, it reacts according to conditions the business has set up in Gimbal Manager. Figure 3 - Polygonal Geofence Unlimited number operating systems like ios and Android include tools for limited, per- app geofencing, but Gimbal imposes no limit on the number of geofences a business can maintain. This allows a restaurant chain or national- wide retailer, for example, to thousands of geofences to cover their entire footprint or location of interest. Updates Even after millions of customers have installed and used the mobile app, the business can easily add, edit and delete geofences from Gimbal Manager without requiring the application to need to be updated in the app store. Proximity - How Do I Locate the Customer in My Place of Business? A proximity beacon marks a smaller geographic area; for example, a department within a store, a specific street address, a section of a parking lot or a landmark in a plaza. Proximity is a micro- location technology for areas with a radius of 50 meters to inches. Gimbal Proximity is the micro- location complement to Gimbal Geofence. Customers can receive personalized content as they move among 5 Figure 4 - Beacons Superior Hardware and Flexibility With our Qualcomm heritage, we continue to produce 1 Proximity in Gimbal requires a Bluetooth smart ready device. As of November 2013, Gimbal Proximity supports ios 5-or-later devices that are Bluetooth smart ready; e.g., iphone 4S or later, ipad 3 or later, ipod touch 5 and ipad mini or later. Consult http://www.bluetooth.com/pages/bluetooth-smart- Devices-List.aspx for a complete list.
industry- leading beacons with the cleanest transmissions, which means better user experiences, data and analytics. Beacon transmitters can mark zones for customer engagement from a few inches up to 50 meters. Furthermore, the developer can decide whether to use the built- in omnidirectional antenna to create a spherical zone or, on some models, directional antenna for a directional zone. Beacons may run for months or years on their battery, and there is no limit on the number of beacons a business may deploy and maintain Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth low energy) This feature of Bluetooth 4.0 is supported in a significant installed base of mobile devices. With its low energy profile, it can run constantly in the background on a customer s mobile device with negligible impact on the mobile device s battery life Figure 5 - Communicate Multiple context triggers Businesses can trigger notifications ad hoc, or by location (geofence, proximity), time or a combination of these. (see Figure 6) Central management Gimbal Manager manages all your beacons, allowing businesses to activate, edit and delete them; update their physical placement and metadata; and monitor their battery life. Secure transmissions By default Gimbal hardware operates in a secure Gimbal- mode. This prevents an eavesdropper from associating the signal with the beacon and makes it extremely difficult to identify the location of both the beacon and the customer. Furthermore, this unique functionality ensures digital ownership of your beacon network, giving you the ability to choose who does, and doesn t, have access to your beacons. For more details on Gimbal Proximity and Gimbal beacons, see gimbal.com. Communicate - How Do I Deliver Relevant Content to My Customer? Knowing their customers location and interests, businesses can use Gimbal Communicate to enhance the user experience. They can send relevant notifications through the device to display content in their app or link to a URL (see Figure 5). Figure 6 - Geofence trigger Analytics - How Many Customers Have Visited? Gimbal Manager anonymously stores data on each customer visit (e.g., geofence breach or beacon visit) and makes it visible through analytics. Businesses can view a report and download the raw data associated with their applications, including total visits, unique visitors, enter time, exit time and average dwell time (see Figure 7). 6
TRUSTe certification Gimbal s transparent and consumer- friendly privacy practices have merited certification by TRUSTe. Additionally, Gimbal is actively involved in the Future of Privacy Forum. Anonymity Gimbal does not collect UUIDs (universally unique identifiers) such as name, phone number, email address and social network ID. Figure 7 - Analytics Anonymous statistics Integrated analytics make it possible to understand users real- world activities in a privacy- friendly way: how many customers visited a location, and how long did they stay? Raw data Businesses can also download the source data to incorporate to their own datasets and preferred analysis tools Privacy and Security - How Safe Is My Customer's Data? Location and proximity- based awareness depends on customers data, which they will share only if they are confident that they retain control over it and if it is in exchange for a valuable service. Gimbal has been designed and built for this desired privacy control. Simple, transparent controls Users must opt into any Gimbal- enabled features in their mobile- applications and must be able to opt out (i.e., turn on or off) of any Gimbal features in use. Furthermore, each application must include a privacy policy that explains what data is collected and how it is used. Lastly, each application must provide a means of resetting the anonymous Gimbal identifier from the device. Conclusion As location and proximity- based awareness plays an increasing role in mobile user experiences, venues, retailers, brands, OOH networks and advertisers need new tools for sending offers and content to their customers and prospects. One- off tools for geofencing, proximity beacons, communication and analytics are emerging quickly, but only Gimbal offers a secure, comprehensive way of building location and proximity- based awareness into mobile applications with our industry leading solution. Gimbal s expertise puts the full range of mobile device s capabilities to work for businesses looking to build loyalty, engagement and sales while improving the user experience. Businesses can easily use Gimbal Manager to create and monitor geofences, proximity beacons, queue up relevant engagements based on analytics, giving them digital insights into the physical world of their customers and prospects. Follow Us The Gimbal platform for Android and ios enables mobile application providers to deliver more timely, personalized and relevant content to mobile audiences. Follow us at gimbal.com. Businesses can get started on their own tour of Gimbal by visiting www.gimbal.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and on LinkedIn. 7
Gimbal, Inc. Gimbal is a trademark of Gimbal, Inc. The Bluetooth word mark is a registered trademark owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. Wi- Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi- Fi Alliance. iphone, ipad and ipod touch are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Other product and brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. This technical data may be subject to U.S. and international export, re- export or transfer laws. Diversion contrary to U.S. and international law is strictly prohibited. Gimbal, Inc. 11010 Roselle Street, Suite 150 San Diego, CA 92121 U.S.A. 2015 Gimbal Inc. All Rights Reserved. 8