There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of Bluetooth (aka “toothing“) as a mobile marketing technique. As a technology, it undoubtedly holds promise–the key is in implementation. What a company might call “bluecasting,” the consumer may consider “bluespamming.” In a recent trial we did in Singapore with Aviva, we hoped to uncover some best practices.
Aviva’s Futurator Campaign
Through a dedicated Bluetooth kiosk, users could receive a banner encouraging them to experience Aviva’s Futurator in the actual shopping mall, and a chance to win $10,000. For people to receive the banner, they had to be in the range of the kiosk and activate the bluetooth on their mobile phone. The results were more than encouraging as we achieved over 4% banner ad download rates over 3 days reaching out to more than 790 unique mobile phones.
Right Message At the Right Time
At the beginning, questions were raised about the number of people who would actually turn on their Bluetooth without any pre-seeded knowledge of the campaign. Often, with Bluecasting campaigns, a lot of emphasis is placed on awareness marketing, essentially telling costumers and consumers to ‘Turn on your Bluetooth’. While awareness marketing has its advantage and is a big part of successful proximity-based campaigns, we also learned that the location of whatever is being distributed is an understated and overlooked ingredient in any successful Bluecasting campaign. Where your customer is actually located when the message arrives is a major factor in influencing their behavior. This makes sense on many levels, from immediate customer engagement to shortening the decision process, getting the right message at the right time is essential. The old cliche ‘quality not just quantity’ was on every one’s lips when we were doing our post campaign analysis.
Setting up Shop
Another insight from the campaign came when we discovered that by setting up various Bluecasting stations inside and outside our mall location, the highest participation rate was found outside the mall. This reaffirmed two of our understandings of mobile behavior and usage:
1) Information that is fed at an early stage of the shopping decision making cycle is crucial to influencing decisions on where to go and what to do
2) Engaging the user in a somewhat neutral environment is better than engaging him/her in an environment in which advertising and buying is expected
Setting up shop at a very visible, prominent location also helped create buzz. Not only was the audience intrigued but they opted-in as well. We saw many customers pause to receive the file and then look around for some marketing presence, seeing our tent outside got them to duly walk over to sign up. This movement and engagement sparked others to follow the herd.
Conclusion
We were pleased with the results and continue to advocate bluecasting as a great mobile marketing tool when relevant. By understanding consumer expectations and reactions to activity on their personal device, we have begun to see more and more how understanding mobile behavior is so important in delivering great mobile campaigns.
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