PlaceWise Media has grown to a national consumer sales powerhouse operating behind the veil of the Internet. The company develops and operates the websites for roughly 500 malls and other retail locations across the U.S., including grocery stores, touching some 25 million shoppers a month, without ever putting its name out there.
"We deliver you just what you want right where you are," says PlaceWise CEO Mort Aaronson. "If you're the advertiser, we deliver the mirror-image opposite -- just who you want right when you're ready."
The strategy puts the company at the nexus between the shopper, local retail location and advertiser from computers to mobile devices.
"We also sell to companies that do deals, coupons and specials and we also distribute access to our advertising easements through alignments with media companies," Aaronson explains.
The company provides website services for roughly 50 percent of the malls in the U.S. “What we do is very specific,” Aaronson contends. “We need to know what’s there and who goes there and we need to know something about the local community. We need to know all the retailers there.” He quips, “You don’t put a gap ad in a mall that doesn’t have a Gap and I can assure you that while it may seem like there’s a Gap in every mall there isn’t.”
The grocery (99 percent) and health, fashion and beauty (93 percent) of sales are made in person -- even if the consumers are looking up products online, Aaronson says. Today’s smartphones, mobile devices and computers can connect consumers with goods in local stores. "We have the ability to take that shopper from the ad, deliver them to the store, prove it out to the advertiser or the brand and that’s a pretty interesting value proposition right now," Aaronson says.
Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Chris Meehan with tips and leads for future stories at chris@confluence-denver.com.
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