Lat49, a Vancouver-based ad network that places brand logos and displays on interactive maps, yesterday announced the addition of Rand McNally, a Chicago-based publisher of maps, globes and atlases, to their list of 150 publishers. .
‘We’re anticipating the relationship with Rand McNally to bring for us anywhere between five to 15 million additional impressions into the network, out of the gate,’ Keith Ippel, co-founder and CEO of Lat49 tells MiC. Lat49 places display advertising (in the form of buttons, banners, images) directly on map displays online. It has worked with major hotel names like Marriott and Holiday Inn in the US, as well as some unexpected brands like BMW and Odwalla fruit beverages, for instance. One of the myths that Ippel says his company debunks about map advertising is that it doesn’t necessarily have to do with an advertiser’s retail location.
For example, ‘we’re talking to a major shoe brand to deliver their brand when people are looking at major marathon routes. Not because they have a physical location there, but because running a marathon reflects the qualities and attributes of the brand, and then people engage with the ad as a result,’ Ippel says. Most of Lat49’s publishers are contextual maps, like Alberta-based RunningMap.com or HotPads.com, where people check out routes based on a particular interest (as opposed to search mapping like Google Maps). ‘People actually engage with the map – they start roaming around, looking for information, exploring and engaging the data. That’s where we thrive,’ he says.
The cost for advertisers is based on a CPM rate, ranging between $7 to $25 CPM, depending on the campaign. Ippel says clickthrough rates range between 0.2 and 1.6% throughout their network.
