I’ve written a number of times about the new Apple store about to open in our town here in the West Country of England. While looking out for local information on an opening date, the following email arrived for me this morning from Apple :

If you look at it carefully, you’ll see it’s precisely geo-targeted. There’s no mention of a town or city, just the shopping complex : Princesshay. No-one outside a couple of counties would know what this was. So how did they do it?

Putting on my Sherlock Holmes deer-stalker hat, I’ve concluded the information must have been gleaned from my membership of Apple iTunes, possibly from credit card details. Even so, that’s very precise targeting and shows what can be done in the age of the internet.

We have known for a while that Google is seeking ways of marrying person-specific advertising with worldwide IP television. Apple seems to have beaten them to it with city-specific advertising by email.

Some might call it spam, but I’m grateful for the information.