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By Greg Bartlett

If there’s one thing you can glean from skimming this blog, it’s that nearly every avenue of business can benefit from a careful and thorough implementation of GPS tracking technology. Shipping and fleet management are obvious choices, but what about branches that deal with the so-called softer operations, like marketing. It seems one specialized furniture company in New York has answered that question.

GPS & Marketing

Blu Dot sells art deco and high fashion furniture, including oddly shaped tables, chairs, and other home accessories. They certainly deal with a specialized market, but when the owners moved into a new location in Manhattan, they devised a simple yet innovative viral marketing scheme that played off the time-honored New York custom of “curb mining”. New Yorkers lacking bits of furniture may pick up items left on sidewalks, so Blu Dot decided to place 25 of its Real Good line of chairs around the city, hoping they’d disappear.

The catch was simply this: many of the chairs are equipped with GPS tracking devices and some even with cameras. Fans of the Blu Dot Company can appreciate the accuracy of the GPS tracking by accessing their website and noting the live locations of each of the chairs. Those following the experiment are excited to see where these unique products will go, especially the owners. They interested in finding where the chairs will end up, whether under a bridge or an old aparment. GPS tracking has turned a simple viral stunt into a genuinely engaging community event, which is generating an ample amount of publicity for the company. Blu Dot will eventually interview the final owners of the chairs, and ask what drew them to these particularly unique pieces.

The experiment highlights some of the intriguing ways companies can use their GPS tracking technology to market their products and services. A shipping company could record and publish tracking data of some members of its fleet, thereby noting the success of a recent environmentally conscious effort to reduce the miles traveled by individual vehicles. Another firm could attach a GPS tracking device to one of its products and have a consumer tweet about its use over the course of a week.

The truly innovative ideas will arise specific to your own company, but there’s no doubt that GPS tracking systems can provide a wealth of opportunities for marketing and any other department in your business.