Currently, 96 percent of world trade takes place through traditional brick and mortar stores. Add almost 1,000 million smartphones with integrated GPS to that retailing picture and a whole range of advertising opportunities, with high added value for advertisers and consumers, opens up. This is the basis upon which Sonata was born…with the goal to drive foot traffic to local retailers’ point of sale via potential customers’ smartphones

How does Sonata work? It divides the world into 90-square-metre ‘plots.’ The ‘plots’ are uploaded with local business adverts which then appear on smartphones and tablets that come in range of the advertiser according to the smartphone’s geolocation.

The process of uploading an advertising campaign is very simple for the retailer and takes no more than three minutes. A retailer doesn’t need a website or even a mobile app; all that’s required is a minimum investment of £50.

Advertisers follow three simple steps: 1. registration using an email address; 2. adding the store details (just one or a whole network); 3. choosing the ad’s geographical area and the design of the ad from one of Sonata’s creative templates (or advertisers can create their own design).

“Any local business, including those without technical know-how, can create an advertising campaign,” says Alvaro del Castillo, CEO of TAPTAP Networks and the developers of Sonata.

“An added attraction of Sonata is that local businesses only pay for actual results-calls, registrations, clicks, purchases in the store… whatever form of contact a customer makes-and can choose how much to pay for them,” says del Castillo.

“The Sonata platform is focused on meeting the need of the local small-business sector, which views the online world as a major threat with the ever-growing pressure it exerts from ‘showrooming’ and the selling of cost price goods by major e-commerce players,” explains de Castillo.