Wizardry that will make at least one marketing decision easier--and better!

Here's a new technology that's pretty cool!  

Part of the marketing function in a large corporation is the responsibility to decide exactly were future, planned operations are to be carried out--this is particularly true with respect to the selection of ideal retail locations such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and stores.

Until now these kinds of location decisions have been guided in large part, first by quantitative data [population size & growth, income data, economic development statistics, etc.] as well as, eventually, by observation and intuition by actual site exploration visits.  Recently a new military-based technology has been introduced to the commercial world that will dramatically change the way some key marketing decisions are made--as well as add new meaning to the term marketing warfare. 

It’s called a “touchtable” and promises to revolutionize how retail location selections are made, say, in the placement of big-box retailers, distribution centers, fast-food restaurants, and the like.  Until now actual people would need to—as they call it in the out-of-home advertising business—“ride the circuit”; in effect, make visits to potential sites, eventually deciding based on ground-level inspection tours which of several [or many] locations are the prime places to focus future retail operations. 

Now with a device such as the touchtable, planners can inspect the surrounding territory—using satellite images—not only of how circumstances appear today, but how they have evolved over time, using historical time-stopped imagery stored by the system, thus showing the progress of develop for a region in time!  Such development might include matters of interest like road-way infrastructure, traffic patterns, commercial and housing settlements, and so on. 

This won’t obviate the need to actually pay a visit to some promising place to locate operations, but will narrow—and likely optimize the final choice to begin with! 

Check out the two sites that are available that show this nifty new technology. One's at PBS and the other's on YOUTUBE.  I assure you, you'll find it fascinating!   

It is interesting to consider what other business applications or marketing decisions there are that this technology might address!