Marketing companies increasingly are using Bluetooth to get their messages across in airports, shopping malls and movie theaters. While advertisers view the tactic as a valuable new way to get close to consumers, some say it’s nothing more than high-tech spam.
Marketers have been deploying Bluetooth-based marketing campaigns quietly for months, but the efforts only recently have begun to attract attention. Virgin Atlantic Airways is teaming with Range Rover on an offering that sends a text message to Bluetooth users asking if they’d like to download a video clip of the carmaker’s new SUV. Another campaign, featuring Coldplay, saw 13,000 users access video clips, interviews, audio samples and wireless images from the popular band.
WideRay Corp., a technology company that provides on-site content distribution platforms, powered a similar campaign in three Loews Theatre sites this summer. Users who passed within 35 feet of a kiosk at theaters in Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco were offered downloadable content like movie clips from four Twentieth Century Fox films including “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Kingdom of Heaven.”
Such efforts have drawn criticism from some who decry the use of unsolicited messages to mobile phones. Indeed, the campaigns seem to fly in the face of the Mobile Marketing Association’s best practices guidelines. “Approval from the subscriber must be obtained prior to sending commercial SMS messages and other content,” according to the group’s stipulations.
Laura Marriott, the association’s executive director, said Bluetooth-powered campaigns likely will be examined when the group revises its guidelines later this year. But WideRay, which claims the Loews effort didn’t garner a single complaint, said that moviegoers opt-in to receive the first message by simply enabling the Bluetooth technology on their handsets.
“It’s a double opt-in,” said Alan Cohen, WideRay’s vice president of marketing. “The first way to opt-in is to have your phone on and discoverable; the second way is to say, `Yes, I want the content.”‘
“If someone truly doesn’t want to be bothered,” continued Cohen, “they shouldn’t have their phone on and discoverable.”
WideRay has deployed similar campaigns at video-game retailer EB Games and in movie theaters and wireless retailers in the U.K. The company has seen very few complaints about unwanted come-ons in any of its Bluetooth efforts, Cohen said, because the campaigns are specifically tailored for each environment.
“When you put these in a location like a retailer, the customer is in that mind-frame. They’re accepting of the message because they’ve opted to be there,” said Cohen. “If we were using (Bluetooth) in a movie theater to offer coupons for Payless Shoes, that would probably be a little aggravating to consumers.”
Cohen declined to cite specific numbers from the Loews campaign, but said hundreds of people per week received an initial message as they walked through the theater. Of those, he said “40 to 60 percent” opted to download content of one sort or another-an astonishingly high percentage. The Coldplay effort, for instance, saw only 15 percent of those “pinged” choose to receive more content or information.
But some say the messages can be aggravating regardless of the type of campaign or content being offered. Because wireless phones are both portable and personal, receiving an unsolicited message on a handset can actually be worse than getting spam on a computer, said Oliver Starr, chief technology officer of telecommunications consultant firm Hello Inc. Many users with Bluetooth-enabled phones aren’t familiar with the technology, he said, and may not even know how to disable the signal.
“The companies that are providing this service are essentially depending on the naivete of a consumer walking around with an open Bluetooth socket,” said Starr, who also maintains a blog on the wireless industry. “To me, a cell phone is becoming a remote control for your life. It’s the most intensely personalized device you own.”
Marketers could use the technology more effectively by announcing promotions at specific times and places where messages and content could be received, said Starr. And while Bluetooth’s relatively wide footprint might be problematic for targeted campaigns, he said, other technologies could be used for a more satisfying experience for all involved. Technologies such as Near Field Communication, which operates within a proximity of just a few inches, could allow a user to place their phones in a kiosk to receive promotional material, eliminating any chance of unwanted messages.
As Bluetooth technology becomes more prevalent, though, the marketing efforts are sure to increase. The technology is shipping on more than 5 million units per week, according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, and Strategy Analytics says 14 percent of North American phones will be Bluetooth-enabled by the end of the year.
If WideRay’s claim of a 40- to 60-percent “take rate” during the Loews campaign is sustainable, advertising companies will surely scramble to deploy similar efforts as quickly as possible. But marketers who come on too strong will do so at the risk of losing long-term customers new technologies can help create.
“I hope the companies that are pursuing these new methods of marketing are really responsible and respectful to consumers,” said Starr. “If they are, they could build the best relationships they could imagine.”
