Getting Bluetooth Marketing Right

By James May 5th, 2006 ( MocoNews)

French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux has plans to launch a bluetooth/wi-fi advertising service. The main difference between this service and similar ones elsewhere is that consumers choose to receive the messages — they have to download and install a particular piece of software and then fill out a profile. “We are switching from a one-time active response to the user’s blanket acceptance of many digital messages,” said Albert Asseraf, director of strategy, research and marketing at JCDecaux. “We will, of course, need to be careful in making certain that users get only advertisements that interest them.” Of course, the draw is that the ads will offer things the consumers find of interest, such as digital content or coupons.

It seems that the advertising industry is waking up to the whole idea that permission-based marketing doesn’t involve contacting someone every time you want to advertise to them. This quote from Jean-Paul Edwards, the London-based head of media futures for Manning Gottlieb OMD, a media buying agency: “A cautious and permission-based approach is vital when using technologies that touch consumers so directly…”When you bridge the gap between something so public as a street poster and something so private as a mobile phone, there are inherent dangers…It is extremely powerful to get into somebody’s pocket, but you also take the risk of annoying them.”

Interestingly, there are more than advertising plans in the works. An application called UbiBoards will “will show information in the language spoken by a majority of the people nearby”, based on the mobile phone details of people who have registered. Another application, called UbiQ, aims to “allow people in a location like a bank, cinema or fast- food restaurant to give information by cellphone about what they want before getting to the front of the line.”

All of these services require people to register, and it needs a critical mass to make the venture worthwhile. Obtaining that critical mass might be tricky, but there are some obvious ways to promote it…and that’s what advertising companies do, after all. (via Textually)

Etienne Richelle Says: August 10th, 2006

Advertising via Bluetooth has a very unique property : if people are not interested, they will switch Bluetooth off, and the advertisement will be totally ignored by them. This is done even more easily as in an internet browser popup blocker because all phones offer the Bluetooth “hidden” mode, in which they can not be detected.

The challenge is for the media agencies to come up with interesting content to push to mobile phones for people not only to leave Bluetooth on, but to come close to the hotspots for fetching the goodie. The spam will not work over Bluetooth, the handsets are considered as too personal, and disabling Bluetooth on them is easy.

If agencies understand how to make the best of this new media, it could be that advertising over Bluetooth will become a high quality media. This is understood by early adopters… Porsche, Coke, Nokia.

Petros Says: August 16th, 2006

A response from the tip of Africa, our company WCIT has had quite a bit of success in launching Bluetooth Location Based Marketing in SA. Yes the media is new and yes the content is king (bad content gets you a very low response). We have Bluetooth systems installed at 17 malls country wide and are fast establishing the media as a generally accepted advertising and marketing channel. One observation that we can offer is don’t overanalyse the system and process rather get live sites and let the customers choose what they like best.

Nik Simms Says: August 22nd, 2006

Getting Bluetooth Marketing Right is all about not abusing this service. Bluetooth Advertising have strict terms and conditions about how its hardware is used. All units if used for gorilla, inhouse or shop front are pre-configured and cannot be modified without Bluetooth advertisings’ concent, all devices are monitored using GPRS and can be located using LBS.

The units are configured not abuse the service and how it is broadcasted to nearby mobile devices, if a device says ‘no’ or times out it will wait one hour before it attempts to send it again, if the device says ‘yes’ it will wait 24 hours before sending a new message.

Toerholm Says: August 31st, 2006

My company Blip Systems provides a complete Bluetooth Marketing platform.

Our solution BlipZones has a unique opt-in feature. This feature allows users to sign up via the mobiles for an advertisement services, via a very simple procedure.

Our system is a complete network based system, with a central content mangement system, Bluetooth access points and an optional mobile client.

Users may indicate their specific interest as a part of the sign up process, and this information can then be applied to send the most interesting content to the users.

Our new mobile client the BlipExplorer is a interactive mobile brochure, which can be distributed and updated via Bluetooth.

Bluetooth marketing is not about setting up a hiden access point to spam nearby mobiles, its about sending relevant content to customers there has accepted the service.

Our new mobile brochure allows us to provide valuable partical information about e.g. a tourist site to vistors, and at the same time establish a marketing channel.

Content is king.