Allegra incorporates air-quality data into new mobile mapping app

Dive Brief:

Sanofi OTC allergy brand Allegra launched a mobile app, Allegra Airways, that integrates real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) information into Google Maps so travelers can find routes with the lowest amounts of air pollution and allergens, according to information shared with Marketing Dive.
The app is a product of a partnership with Ambee, a climate and environmental intelligence platform. It is being piloted in New York City, which is the location of the United Nations climate summit this week and will roll out to the rest of the United States in 2024.
To promote the app’s availability, Allegra is offering rides to visiting U.N. delegates in branded pedicabs whose drivers are equipped with the Allegra Airways app.

Dive Insight:

In addition to making some areas uninhabitable, the global climate crisis is affecting people’s health. Air pollution is already the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, and, according to Allegra, it also exacerbates allergies, producing three times the amount of histamines in the body. As humans continue to put carbon-based pollution in the air — and climate change worsens natural phenomena such as wildfires — half of all people in the world will have some kind of allergy.

The Allegra Airways app is a solution to that growing problem, using real-time data to chart the intersection of air pollution and pollen (including ash, grass and ragweed) on routes between a user’s beginning and ending destinations. Once mapped, the clean-air routes can be integrated into Google Maps.

Allegra officials likened the new app to Waze in that it provides different routes to a destination, in this case based on air quality factors. One key differentiation is that Waze uses crowdsourced information, while Allegra Airways uses scientific AQI data. Not coincidentally, Google has been working to more closely integrate Waze, which it purchased in 2013, into its existing maps division, known as Geo.

In June, Google reportedly told employees that it was looking to “transition Waze’s ads monetization to be managed by the Global Business Organization, similar to Google Maps,” according to CNBC. The move was intended to scale and optimize Waze’s advertising capabilities, according to the report.