Unibail Rodamco Westfield

Unibail Rodamco created a mobile application integrating a series of indoor location based services. At this stage, the mobile application, along with the indoor location solution, have been deployed over 30 malls in Europe and is being extended to 20 additional malls.

How indoor positioning by Pole Star is transforming the shopping mall experience

Unibail-Rodamco, the #1 European commercial real estate group with nearly 80 shopping malls, expands its partnership with Pole Star, the pioneer and world leader on the indoor positioning market, to provide visitors with a real-time geolocation app, available for both Android and iPhone. A world first, NAO Campus® is the natural complement to Google Map Indoor, already deployed in some of the group’s shopping centers.

The real-time geolocated mobile app is powered by NAO Campus®, Pole Star’s revolutionary indoor positioning technology, and currently deployed at Unibail-Rodamco’s leading French shopping centers, Le Forum des Halles and So Ouest. The partnership between Unibail – Rodamco and Pole Star started one year ago with the deployment of Pole Star indoor positioning service, available for Android Smartphones, at Les 4 Temps shopping mall in Paris – La Défense.

The new app adds a 3D interactive map and turn-by turn guidance so shoppers will never get lost again inside these large, complex venues.

“We are delighted to expand our partnership with Unibail – Rodamco, which very early on understood the many benefits of indoor positioning for its shopping centers across Europe. The fact that Unibail – Rodamco has once again chosen Pole Star’s solution clearly indicates that indoor location has now reached a new phase of mass market adoption,” says Pole Star CEO, Christian Carle.

With ten years industry experience, Pole Star has reached the maturity to develop iPhone and Android compatible solutions. NAO Campus® is based on a multi-technology fusion engine, enabling Pole Star to rapidly combine location via the Wi-Fi existing network with the smartphone motion sensors and Bluetooth low-energy to perfect the user’s position in 3D. This fusion of information allows to offer a highly accurate positioning service, while minimizing Wi-Fi infrastructure deployment costs. NAO Campus® also uses GPS signals to guarantee seamless indoor/outdoor transitions and provide users turn-by-turn guidance once they have left the shopping mall.

Pole Star’s indoor location service also enables a rich set of contextual, real-time geomarketing data, allowing large venue operators such as malls, airports, museums or convention centers to enrich the already existing functions with user analytics, customers relevant discounts, coupons and an overall better shopping experience.

“Our solution is unique as we offer fully embedded indoor positioning solution for both Android smartphones and iPhone. It is complementary to Google Map Indoor solution and very distinct in terms of service, ROI and business model, allowing our customers to deploy a location-based mobile application under their own brand. The fact that NAO Campus® is compatible with both Android and iPhone, which together make up 80% of the Smartphone market, has opened up new opportunities in Europe and in the United States where we are based, as well as all over the world.” concludes Christian Carle, CEO of Pole Star

The new location based app for the Forum des Halles is available on the Apple Store and Google Play.

Indoors location based services are a key factor for malls because of their large size and huge crowds. We have worked extensively with Pole Star to deploy this first use case of location based services.
Julien Marlot
Head of CX digital solutions at Unibail-Rodamco