Back in August, I wrote a post about Hypertag setting up a network of net-connected Bluetooth units around London for marketers to use. I thought it was an interesting idea, but some other people, like Tom Hume, didn’t really agree (though I take some pride in being able to get coffee to shoot out his nose).
The crux of Tom’s argument was basically that usability and user experience was really poor, for a variety of reasons. And, I’ve got to admit — he’s right. I ran into a Bluetooth-equipped poster in the subway here in London and tried it out. I had to add “Whistler” (the name of the resort being promoted) to the Bluetooth name of my device to opt in, and as soon as I did, I got a Bluetooth message. It was an animated GIF telling me I hadn’t won a free trip, but to visit their web site or something.
Obviously changing the Bluetooth name acts as an opt-in mechanism. That’s great, better than bluespamming everybody on the platform. Making the change wasn’t too difficult, but then again, I’m used to doing this sort of thing. As Tom suggests, asking average users to do this is a stretch. Never fear, though — the poster provides helpful instructions:
Do they really expect people to do all that? Somebody must be having a laugh with the “(Yes, it’s that easy.)” bit just above it, because that really isn’t easy at all. It’s stupidly difficult, as Tom pointed out.
[tags] mobile, mobile marketing, bluetooth[/tags]
I figure using infrared didn’t require at all as much work, but not all (very few actually) phones have infrared activated by default.
An easier description would be:
“Send an empty SMS to nnnnn, and we’ll tell you if you’ve won a free trip to Whistler.”
That way the company would also capture the phone number of the user.
Of course sending back an SMS costs in certain areas of the world, but if the ad is targeted that’s probably not an issue.
[…] Erilaisia virityksiä blueooth:in käytöstä on nähty ennenkin (muistatteko bFree:n). Englannissa on törmätty tälläiseen mainosjulisteeseen, joka neuvoo ihmisiä vaihtamaan puhelimessa bluetooth nimekseen “Whistler” Tämän tehtyä juliste lähettää heti viestin, jossa animoitu GIF kuva, joka kertoo onko voittanut laskettelumatkaa Whistleriin tai muita palkintoja. Ihan näpsäkkä, kokeilisin tottakai jos tuollainen kohdalle tulisi. […]
Wow. That is marketing madness gone seriously awry. I’m astounded.
Wouldn’t saying “visit whistler.mobi [or sonething] using your phone’s browser” be a little easier? Just a thought…
I live in London and came across one of these Hypertag Bluetooth terminals in a bar. It was promoting a new TV channel. As someone who is very interested in mobile and digital marketing I stood there for 3 or 4 minutes trying to make it work.
Eventually it did and the “exciting content” I was promised turned out to be a static wallpaper.
Great idea, but poorly executed which leads to a poor user experience.
Steve
http://openhouse.typepad.com
[…] Bluetooth Marketing Revisited 3 Steve Roest, Daniel Appelquist, Anders Borg […]
[…] Bluespamming continues to live on: using Bluetooth to distribute marketing content, but doing it responsibly, makes it ridiculously obtuse for interested users. So what’s a company to do? Ignore best practices and just bluespam, or ping every visible Bluetooth connection within site. Mobile Marketing Magazine says that a company was running a Bluespamming… er, Bluecasting campaign at a London theater, and spun the fact that 703 people out of 9,595 actually accepted the offer of a video download. […]
[…] A couple of interesting points there. As Ewan says, even if you don’t see this as spamming, the user experience isn’t great (and it’s even worse if you try and act responsibly, which hardly provides an incentive). Also, as Tom points out, the supposed legality of bluespamming seems like it comes from a technicality, not the actual spirit of the relevant law — even though Dutch regulators have ruled commercial Bluetooth messages aren’t covered by European anti-spam laws either. […]
Opt-in is a great idea. Changing names is rather tiresome. SMS doesn’t help in identifying users by Bluetooth - it is a technological limitation. A good solution we’ve come up with at TeriMobile is initialising communication by sending a Bluetooth message (a photo of a poster, or a barcode etc). This also goes in line with the location based concept.