Starbucks to text customers when they walk past each branch

The innovative mobile marketing is being described as "…more targeted, engaging and effective than ever before." Starbucks is one of the first brands on board for the six-month trial, which relies on consumers opting into the service to receive relevant messages dependent on their age, gender, interests and for the first time, their location. Shaun Gregory, Managing Director of O2 Media, said: "The growth of location-based services will create a golden age for proximity marketing. It fuels a growing expectation among consumers for personalised advertising via their mobile phones that is directly relevant to their passions. "The market potential here is huge - it has already had massive success in the USA - and this is another nail in the coffin of the old model of reaching mass audiences in one go." How it works: O2 customers register on O2 More www.o2more.co.uk, launched in December 2009, by inputting information about their age, gender and interests such as football, travel and cinema When opted-in O2 More customers are found to be within a geo-fenced area owned by Starbucks, those interested in food and drink receive an SMS offering them money off Starbucks VIA Ready Brew at a nearby branch O2 protects its customers' privacy by not sharing data peer to peer O2 does not spam its customers with irrelevant or frequent SMS or MMS – opted-in O2 More customers only receive a maximum of one SMS or MMS per day from O2 More Customers can opt out of the service at any time The service works on any mobile phone (not just smartphones) and does not need an app. It has no impact on battery life as all detection is done as part of the service O2 provides for voice and messaging The service is not available to customers aged under 16 years.