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PLACED IS A new mobile “location analytics” company that builds visual 3D maps for advertisers showing where their customers are at any given moment based on signals sent out from their mobile phones.

The company believes that knowing where shoppers are when they’re not actually in the store will help advertisers buy location-based mobile ad campaigns

The maps Placed produces show high “affinity locations” for a brands’ audience in any given metro areas.

So far, the data is based on an opt-in panel 100,000-plus users in the United States who have volunteered to be tracked in exchange for shopping “incentives.” Their data is continuously mapped by Placed, based on GPS.

The technology then adds a level of intelligent modeling, so that, for instance, if a person is equidistant from a Starbucks and a bar on a Friday at midnight, the model will show that the bar is the likely location of the user.

Here are Starbucks loyalists in the Seattle area:

Here are fans of McDonald’s, as located in Chicago:

Dunkin Donuts in Boston:

And Apple in San Francisco:

- Jim Edwards

Credit for all images: Placed.com

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