Finally, mobile ads find users

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: Pssst, hey you! There’s a cheap latte waiting at the coffee shop on the corner! CBS is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customised for a person’s location. Its CBS mobile unit is teaming up with the social networking service Loopt, which allows its subscribers to track participating friends and family on their mobile phones.

The ads will appear on two Web sites that are tailored for mobile devices, CBS Mobile news and CBS Mobile sports. So far, privacy and technology concerns have held back the prospect of personalised mobile ads from the likes of Starbucks or Barnes & Noble. But using Loopt’s GPS-based technology and capitalising on its relationships with mobile carriers, CBS Mobile wants to make it easier for advertisers to aim promotions at consumers more precisely as they walk by particular stores and restaurants.

Communications companies abroad have only recently begun to test whether customers are receptive to getting ads based on their location. But there is a growing belief among advertisers and marketers that Americans will embrace this type of advertising, as long as it is useful and not intrusive.

“Consumers are savvy enough to expect advertising,” said Angela Steele, a director at Starcom USA, an ad-buying agency based in Chicago. “They are accepting of it, but they want it to be relevant. If they are getting something they are interested in, that is great. But if they are sending ads that are not relevant, people won’t want it.”

Location-based ads are of great interest to advertisers who have seen shoppers eschew traditional forms of mass-market advertising on television and in newspapers and magazines. “The key is to add value,” said Cyriac Roeding, who runs CBS Mobile. “At the end of the day, if the consumer doesn’t win in this game, there is no game.”

Mobile phone users already see ads on Web pages. But with the CBS service, instead of a more or less random banner popping up on the screen, people who have chosen to participate might see an ad from a business in the neighbourhood, even one within a block or two.