Foursquare and LinkNYC Want to Help You Avoid Trader Joe’s Lines

Here’s a campaign that takes “data-driven marketing” to a whole new level. LinkNYC is using Foursquare’s location data to help New Yorkers avoid each other take down COVID-19 through digital out of home displays (DOOH).

What happened: LinkNYC—the company that powers those digital kiosks on NYC sidewalks—is using Foursquare’s data to display the average hourly traffic levels for nearby grocery stores and drugstores.

Why it matters: Foursquare’s new partnership with LinkNYC hits two ongoing trends.

• In 2015, DOOH only made up 17% of total U.S. OOH ad spend. But in 2020, DOOH will account for one-third of all OOH—and it’s estimated to keep growing, ballooning to 42% by 2023, per eMarketer.
• In a Spring 2020 Edelman survey, 89% of U.S. respondents agreed with the statement, “I want brands to shift money and resources to producing products that help people meet pandemic-related challenges.”

Bottom line: LinkNYC’s data-driven partnership with Foursquare has utilized the dynamic nature of DOOH to respond to one of the most prevalent consumer concerns of 2020.