Reed Exhibitions to white-label iM@ mobile destination guide in Orlando

Reed Exhibitions and interactive Mobile @dvertising are set to implement the beginning stages of an agreement where Reed will white-label iM@’s GPS-enabled mobile destination guides at a series of U.S. trade shows.

Kerry Cannon Jr., the CEO of iM@, says the company this week plans to launch Orlando2Go, a mobile destination guide it’s producing with the Orlando CVB, and that iM@ will soon go live with a white-label version, PGAShow2Go, for Reed’s PGA Merchandise Show Jan. 28-30 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

Business members of the Orlando CVB get free listings in Orlando2GO, which can be accessed on iPhone, Blackberry and Android smartphones, and can add logos, maps, banner graphics, photos, click-to-call and text messages on a pay-for performance basis.

And, as part of the deal, the Orlando CVB members get wider distribution through participation in PGAShow2Go, a white-label version of Orlando2Go, Cannon says.

Reed and iM@ have a revenue-sharing agreement that includes sponsorships that Reed sells for PGAShow2Go and local advertising that iM@ brings in, Cannon says.

In addition to Reed’s Orlando PGA show, the company has agreed to use iM@ mobile destination guides at two other trade shows in the U.S., Cannon adds.

Here’s a representation of Callaway Golf’s ad/listing in PGAShow2Go:

Note that the ad features a couple of interactive maps, including one which enables mobile-phone users to zoom in to see the location of Callaway’s booth on the trade show floor. Here’s what a user would see if they click on Callaway’s PGA Show Special Offer:

As destination marketing organizations (DMOs) begin to tap into the potential of mobile, area hotels, restaurants and attractions would be able to purchase such performance-based ads on these mobile destination guides in Orlando and elsewhere.

GPS-enabled mobile advertising — location, location, location — is in its early stages and it remains to be seen what kind of traction DMOs and local businesses get with such advertising efforts and how these smartphone-enabled destination guides evolve.

Meanwhile, iM@ hopes that the Reed agreement, which takes in supposedly 40,000 attendees at the PGA show, symbolizes the next stage in its own evolution.

The company won PhoCusWright Travel Technology Innovator of the Year in 2008, but has been relatively quiet over the last year as funding stalled. However, that issue seems to have been resolved, and I expect to hear more on that front very soon.

—-

Full disclosure: Tnooz CEO Gene Quinn is also chairman of iM@.