Bacardi have just launched their B-Live radio channel on both the web, but perhaps more interestingly for MobHappy readers, on the mobile. It’s a music-only channel, with no DJs, ads or interruptions and runs 24/7 with music that’s chosen to dance to.
A whole bunch of top DJ’s helped compile the mix of music and there’s some exclusive remixes too, from the likes of DJ Cosmo, Qool DJ Marv (playing as I write) and Unabombers.
As a branding exercise, this is really nice - perfectly themed to Bacardi’s brand values, without forcing them down your throat. It’s got all the hallmarks of Cake, their agency who have done some sterling work over the years in pushing what they call Brand Entertainment. Lynx’s arctic circle gig and Moto’s Gorillaz New York concert spring to mind.
As far as the mobile element is concerned, it’s free to download and listen and available on both 2.5 G and 3G networks. It works on Symbian and Windows Smartphones, which they claim is now 1 in 5 handsets. A Java version is also planned, which will obviously open up the station to a whole bunch more handsets.
Having said that it’s free, you still have to pay operator data charges which could be very substantial if you pay by blank cheque a variable data plan. But if you’re lucky enough to have an operator who’s really serious about driving data use and offers an all-you-can-eat plan, I’m sure you’d find yourself tuning in, especially if you like this music genre. Maybe applications like these will start persuading operators that fixed pricing is the only way to go.
The mobile experience is pretty easy. You download the application, fire it up and it connects to the network. There follows a brief buffering period and then it starts playing. I lost sound a few times as I don’t live in a great area for a mobile reception, but it reconnected, went through the buffering process and started playing again all with no intervention from me.
So, a nice piece of work from Bacardi. I think there’s lots of potential here to make the idea run and run. I also think we’ll see others jumping on this bandwagon in due course, but being first has the greater impact. As I’ve written before, there’s a strong argument that the marriage of mobile and radio is a much more natural one than the shotgun wedding of mobile and TV and Bacardi demostrate that very nicely.
On a final note, I like it when I see good PR in action, so well done to Cake for both a nice campaign and a well thought-through approach to get me to write about this. They just sent me a mobile phone with the app loaded and ready to go, plus some background information. However, no pressure or pestering to write about it. It certainly got my attention and made me have a play - something I perhaps wouldn’t have done if they’d just sent me a press release.
Did the phone make me feel obliged to write something and be nice? No, not at all. If I didn’t like the story, I wouldn’t have written it and if I didn’t like the execution, I’d have been honest about that too. Besides which, I’ve already got a mobile, so it’s not like I was going to be that grateful for another one.
Was it a decent phone they sent you, Russell? Not a Christmas-Cracker Sagem?
It was a Nokia 6630, so not bad at all. Still prefer my 750i though.
Russell
Would Cake care to verify that rather vague “1 in 5 handsets” claim for Symbian and Windows handsets?
Symbian handset shipments in 2005: 33.9m, up from 2004
http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2006/pr20063419.html
Wikipedia claims an IDC report stated Symbian had 54.5% of the smartphone market in 2005, Windows (PPC & Smartphone combined) had 6.5m devices in 2005, with 13% of the smartphone market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
Total handset sales in 2005 were 816.6m units
http://wireless.iop.org/articles/news/7/3/2/1
So combined these two categories represent 4.9% of the handsets shipped in 2005. Bear in mind both OSs had significant growth in market share in 2005, so if we take into account legacy handsets the figure may be lower (partially balanced by sales in 2006, of course)
First world sales of smartphones can be expected to be higher than the global figures suggest, but a quick glance in the Carphone Warehouse catalogue will tell you that it isn’t by much. Can anyone run an analysis on the seriously detailed figures eg. M:Metrics have and post a more accurate summary?
5% is one in five, right? Heaven forbid that sales and marketing folk would be a little fast and loose with the figures for the sake of an easier sale…
Hmm. Good idea in theory. Couldn’t get it to work on my handset though - currently a Nokia N70 which *is* a Symbian handset. D’oh! I thought the user experience was pretty poor actually for mobile, pretty good for the web. It wasn’t an easy process to sign up and download even if I’d had a compatible phone and the potential data charges are frightening and they don’t make this clear at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept, but the implementation was mixed - there’s no excuse for not supporting N70s - it’s not a brand new phone and it is Symbian for goodness sake and is a free upgrade for a lot of customers and the management of customer expectations was poor IMHO. You only had a good experience cos you had the right phone in the first place to try it out on.
Helen,
Incidentally, i also have a N70 (yes through my free upgrade) and i installed the app and IT SIMPLY WORKS! So not sure where you got the N70 not being supported.
Though I must say, it takes a few many clicks to get it downloaded. Only if they had made it one click download. Otherwise afer downloading its very simple to use. What’s really funny is my gran was curious to see what was coming out of the phone-gosh cant imagine old folks playing bacardi music…..
This is a great service and when you consider all the brand and sponsorship associations that advertiser have access to its easy to see why free to receive *trusted* content will play a huge rule in turning people on to new mobile services.
One of the main challenges to overcome however is operator data charges. Selling in services like this to agencies are easy but when you start to talk about unknowns their consumers will face like data charges for accessing the service things get a little more difficult. Advertisers have never really bought into say, self liquidating premium campaigns and they have enough regulatory issues selling beer or crisps without having to face the music for charging people to watch their ads.
Surely there is some area on all networks that can host free to browse content like advertainment/ branded content / advertiser freebies.
hmm rudeboy - something to do with the fact that the N70 isn’t listed in the dropdown menu on the flash website and the fact that I couldn’t download it from the wapsite maybe? I tried this about a month ago and I’ve tried again today and it still doesn’t work. Yet I can download all kinds of other stuff to my phone without any bother.
I’m really pleased that you were able to download it and it just worked. It didn’t for me and I’m quite patient with these things. So if it doesn’t work for me on my N70 - how many other N70 users are there out there who it won’t work for?
For something like this, usability is key. I read some research lately via Surfkitchen that suggested that unsuccessful looking downloads were aborted after 10 seconds. So that’s about 3 clicks then. This presents a massive challenge to us in this industry. We’re nowhere near that 10 second nirvana for most downloads or mobile internet experiences. Sure, it’s getting better but it ain’t there yet.
FYI 6680 and N70 are one and the same except for N70 is “more stylish looking”.Nokia was very creative with these two handsets.:p
You are right, if people cant find it they are going to leave. Good luck to you all!
look i’ve got a 6630, a 6680, and razr, pbl and some that are so old i could auction them.
i asked my cousin. he’s the bullseye. it worked on his phone. work’d on a few of mine 2.
him, his mates, and even rusty me likes it. it’s a 1st. a start.
if more brands did things like this, rather than pump budget down into the v tube ( when i’m not there, or if i am i’m skipping through) this world could be a lot more entertaining.