Apr 22, 2016Craft brewer Saint Louis Brewery, also known as Schlafly Beer, is mounting Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons on the taps that dispense its beers at businesses throughout St. Louis. The beacons, working in conjunction with the brewery's new Brew Finder app, are intended to catch the attention of customers as they enter bars and restaurants, and to share information with them about the beer on tap. The solution, known as TapTalker, was provided by proximity marketing technology startup Juxtad. Schlafly has installed the beacons at approximately 125 businesses to date.
Juxtad began developing its proximity marketing platform and TapTalker beacon in 2014, shortly after its founding that same year. The platform consists of a beer tap beacon, a content-management system hosted on Juxtad's server, and a software development kit enabling data to be shared with consumers via the Schlafly app.
Schlafly is an independent Saint Louis craft brewery that opened in 1991, says James Pendegraft, the company's CEO. During the past year, Schlafly has been working with Juxtad on a solution that would help the beer brand reach its customers in a targeted manner that would be useful and non-disruptive to those beer drinkers.
The craft brewer had already been working on designing its Brew Finder app—which, once downloaded, provides consumers with a GPS-based service to inform them of the closest restaurant or bar serving their Schlafly beer of choice. (Only an iOS version of the app is available at present, but an Android version is expected to be released this summer.) The beer company decided to include beacon-based functionality for use with the app as well.
When a user downloads the app on his or her Apple iPhone, that individual can receive a push notification upon coming within approximately 30 meters (98.4 feet) of a beacon attached to a Schlafly tap behind a bar's counter, as long as the phone's Bluetooth radio is activated.
When the phone receives the beacon transmission, the Beer Finder app connects to Juxtad's cloud-based software, which sends a notification to the phone. If the user takes no action, the notice will shut itself off. If interested in the notification, however, he or she can slide or select the prompt in order to view a screen indicating a promotion, notes about tasting events or other content. For instance, for every pint of Schlafly beer purchased this week, the brewery will donate $1 to St. Louis Earth Day, a local nonprofit environmental organization that runs the annual St. Louis Earth Day Festival. Selecting the appropriate prompt will bring a user to the St. Louis Earth Day website to view more information about events within the area.
According to Pendegraft, the beer company hopes to learn from the beacon deployment whether notifications lead to greater sales, and when they become excessive. "It's up to us, as marketers, not to send out too many notifications," he says.
For Juxtad, says Martin Howell, the company's co-founder, the hardware challenge related to beacon deployments involves finding a spot at which beacons can be affixed that does not disrupt the aesthetics of a business or other location, and where no one will tamper with them. He notes that beacons are sometimes vandalized or removed when they are highly visible. In addition, because the beacons would be installed onsite at businesses that are Schlafly's clients, the devices needed to be deployed discretely, without requiring installation and servicing by those clients.
The solution, Howell says, is a beacon developed by Juxtad and manufactured for the company by third-party manufacturers. The TapTalker beacon attaches directly to a beer tap, just below its handle. "The device itself is incognito," he states. "You don't have to know it's there."
The company worked closely with Schlafly, Howell says—as well as with other partners that have their own apps—to share the beacon-based content with smartphones and tablets. The TapTalker system can manage any content that Schlafly or another company provides, he says, adding, "We're limited only by the imaginations of the marketers."
The TapTalker beacon comes with a power setting so that the distance of its transmitted signal can be adjusted. Schlafly set its beacons for a broadcast radius of up to 30 meters, Howell reports, with the system able to discern three separate zones within that range, based on the beacon's signal strength, as received by the phone. In that way, the solution can know if an individual is standing within 10, 20 or 30 meters of the device.
What's more, the system can determine how long the individual remains at that location. Although Schlafly and its clients are not currently using this data, Howell says, they could opt to do so in the future. By knowing the distance, the system could tailor messages according to an individual's whereabouts—for example, inviting a person inside if he or she seems to be standing on the patio. And by monitoring how long that customer remains at the bar, the system can provide push notifications regarding car services if he or she appears to have been drinking for a long span of time and thus might not want to drive.
Initially, Pendegraft says, his company simply wants to offer very basic information to potential customers, and to then compare the app's usage against sales changes at each location. To date, he says, about 1,000 people have downloaded the app.
"What we're hoping for are increased purchases," Pendegraft states. "This is still early stages, but what I'm excited about is the engagement we're having with our customers." The company expects to have 250 beacons installed in restaurants and bars by the end of May, he says, and is working with Juxtad on the next promotion when Earth Day ends.
