Hasta La Creative!

Businesses of all kinds — from worldwide department stores to neighborhood shopping districts, international airports to baseball fields — are adopting beacons at a pretty incredible pace. From all-door rollouts to smaller test pilots, companies are very bullish on beacons. As they should be. The devices offer a way to connect with consumers unlike ever before in-store, when it’s relevant to their immediate location. To personally welcome individuals as they arrive. To disseminate important or motivating content. To gather unique insights into on-premise customer behavior. And the beacons themselves are available at such a low cost that adding multiple devices to hundreds of stores is not out of the question.

But, as with most shiny objects, beacons will be abused. In fact, I predict that three out of every four beacon programs will fail in 2015. Companies will get caught up in the hype, glitz and possibilities. Beacons will be treated as a hammer looking for a nail; marketers will try to fit beacons everywhere they can. The principles that should guide any marketing effort of this sort will be forgotten.

Here are the six biggest ways that beacons will be misused:

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