Tap to Mobile

Advertisers trying to increase foot traffic

Background

At the time we worked on this idea, we were throwing “Tap 2 [anything]” on mobile devices. The iPhone had been out for 2-ish years, iPads/tablets had sort of just dropped, and in tech we were all trying to figure out how to leverage what these devices brought to advertising and experiences.

Tap to Maps was pretty much the thing, see an ad for a local business and click on the ad to get directions to get there.

Process

It’s cheap to create mocks. Think through the problem visually and quickly decide if you are going to move forward.


	1. The Ad first appears in an app. Title and visualURL on the first frame. Map pin with distance to advertiser’s address is the “action icon”User can tap on the action icon to go directly to step 2, or tap anywhere else to go to step 1b.
	1A. 2nd frame shows the ad snippet. Map pin with distance to advertiser’s address is the “action icon”User can tap on the action icon to go directly to step 2, or tap anywhere else to go to step 1b.
	1B. This is the 1.5 frameAd gets dimmed (this can be on any frame of the ad). The “action icon” grows from the right to reveal the action of the ad, in this example is to get directions. User can tap on the expanded action icon to go directly to step 2, or tap anywhere else to go to the previous ad view.
	2. A fullscreen overlay appearsThe overlay shows a map of where the user currently is (if we have this) and directions line to the advertiser.A contextual box is at the bottom with the advertisers name, address, phone number and website url. 3 icons appear on the right for directions, call, and ratings. Call opens dialer, ratings stars would open ratings inline, and the car (or map pin) with distance would open the phones default map app with directions.
	Current app looses focus and switches with a native app, maps in this example.
	3. When the user taps for directions, they get put into the phones default map app on iOS or Android with the query done for directions already (I believe this can be done)
	4. If the user chooses to look at the reviews, they are taken to a google places review page for the advertiser. There is a header bar that allows them to navigate back to the map. If this opens in Yelp it would be better to show the Yelp review page, or whatever matching mobile page of the review app this may be viewed in.** Design is completely temporary.

Outcome

This was never launched, hindsight brings into view that it’s hyperlocal, and even though phones are great at serving those types of targeted ads, most advertisers want to drive online conversations at scale.

There is another expansion of this idea that we worked on later when trying to create more immersive experiences to tablets.