Rococo

We get asked quite regularly about Bluetooth-based Proximity Marketing Solutions. Rococo doesn't actually make or sell these, but some of our customers do, and so we typically refer people to them.

So - I though t might be useful to share our standard "form response" to enquires about Bluetooth Proximity Marketing Solutions. There's quite a range of them out there these days, and for the laugh and because we're slightly mad, we plan to try out a few of them over the next few months. So if there's one missing from my list - let me know and we'll take a look at it.

Meanwhile - here's some unstructured notes about these and some comments on some of the ones we know about. We also try and keep a list of links for these alive at http://delicious.com/sos100/proximity_marketing%20

Let's recap what these things are:

They are a combination of hardware and software which is designed to let a Marketer or Someone Who Wants To Promote Something send messages over Bluetooth to nearby mobile phones. Doesn't have to be a mobile phone of course, but that's the typical use-case. The idea is you're walking in a mall, and suddenly have a special offer beamed to your mobile phone from one of the stores nearby.

That's the basic idea. Send some little digital "micro-ad" to a phone, ideally where the ad is relevant to something close by (Bluetooth range is around 10 metres or 30 feet).

After the basic, you can fancy-up the solutions: instead of a little ad, the item sent to the user could be a little application that does something, or a video clip, or a photo. where it's an application, that application could also then enable the user to interact with the marketing system, to ask for specific product information, or to fill out a mini-survey and send it back. And so on.

The use cases are typically around the following areas - so far:

- Selling stuff: this includes Malls and Retail environments, to enable shops to send offers and promotions to people near them, but also includes public spaces, bus stops for example - again send messages and offers to people waiting at the bus stop.
- Promoting things: Cinemas and Hotels use them to promote (respectively) Videos and Ringtones for the movies on offer, or local restaurants and services convenient to the hotel
- Driving user interaction: Nike have used it in New York to power a design-your-own-shoe display; you download an application and then use it to design your own show, which is displayed on the big video board. Alternatively, at concerts, it's been used to enable attendees to post messages on video boards at the event.

And so on. There are various other scenarios you can imagine, but they're mostly variations on a theme. The better ones use the inherent fact that they know you are nearby and that you may be temped in to some marketing or purchasing action on the spot.

Anyway - without further ado - here's some of the off-the-shelf solutions we know of:

BlueMedia (Ireland)
- They offer typical retail-oriented solution; well tried and tested in a variety of markets; dedicated proximity marketing boxes attached to a central PC server; excellent reference sites with quality brand names:
- http://www.bluemedia.ie/

BluePodMedia:
- http://www.bluepodmedia.com/
- As used in football stadia in the UK http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/18/bluepod-media-brings-bluetooth-to-football-stadiums/
- They also did some cinema stuff: http://www.abce-ireland.ie/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=abce/abce&type=page&p=news_111007.html&menuid=news|n1|news_111007|news_111007

Qwikker (used by CBS Outdoor among others)
- http://www.qwikker.com/
- http://www.cbsoutdoor.co.uk/web/Current-news/Newspage-UK/Viacom-Outdoor-launches-Bluetooth-Network-on-London-Underground.htm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/7228905.stm

Proximitymedia
- http://proximitymedia.com/home.htm

HueTouch (basic Bluetooth campaigns...)
- http://www.huetooth.com/bluetooth-proximity-marketing-Huetouch-express.php

BlueMoz (Italy)
- A new one on me: http://www.bluemoz.it/english/index.php

Anyway - you get the idea. A bunch of stuff available, which may do a subset or all of what you want, off the shelf, and will come with manuals, support, etc.

Alternatively, people sometimes look at getting a custom-built solution. Often this is driven by the need to have an application be downloaded to the phone. One of the key issues here is that you'll be forced to deal with the full gamut of software development variable such as how to support all the models of phones that will try to use the application (e.g. a survey)?

An evolving area; we'll do some in-depth reviews of a few of them over the next few months.

Posted by Sean at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, The Guardian ran an article about the CityWare project which is a pretty sizable project out of the University of Bath. The project has several goals, around understanding how people interact and move through their urban environment, but also helping shed light on opportunities and threats associated with the wireless devices that people carry with them. With regard to the latter, it's a little ironic then that the project has come under fire from privacy advocates, with regard to the fact that cityware collects data about people's movements (or more pedantically, about the movements of their Bluetooth-enabled devices) without their knowledge.

In their defense, the Cityware people say that they don't actually collect personal data about people - they're just recording the Bluetooth address of the devices, plus the Bluetooth friendly name (like SOS W350 or Sean's Mobile) if there is one.

It's the latter in particular that I think is causing the problem, although of course, hard-core privacy people would also be concerned about the ability of someone to find out my Bluetooth address and then search the Cityware data (if that were possible) to pick up my "trails" in the system.

On balance, I'm with the Cityware people on this one. Here's why: I reckon I'm "tracked" in some fashion about (wild guess) 200-500 times per day: Credit Card usage, Surveillance cameras *everywhere*, my mobile phone (by the operator), car-tolls (EZPass), Bus passes, ATM usage, and so on, and so on. OK, I know some of these are different, and in theory, they're all in different databases. So argument number one is that Cityware doesn't really add an undue overhead to what's already going on. Plus, some of these are "non optional to me" - I can't ask the store owner to switch off the CCTV while I do my business. Not a great argument I know, but it brings me to my second point: control.

Argument number two is: if you want to not be tracked by Cityware, it's easy. Switch off Bluetooth entirely (safest if you're really concerned). If that's a pain, just ensure your friendly name is set to something innocuous, as opposed to say, your name, your address, and your PIN code :-)

Argument three is: eh, don't live in Bath. Ok just kidding on that one. In fact, the software has been used in other cities also, so even if you don't live in the lovel city of Bath, you may be "at risk".

I have a little bit of sympathy for Simon Davies, of Privacy International who said this:

"For Bath University to assert that there aren't privacy implications demonstrates an astonishing disregard for consumer rights. If the technology is as safe as they claim, then all the technical specifications should be published and people should be informed when they are being tracked."

I agree a little: there are some privacy implications, but in my opinion, they're just not radically different from the environment we're immersed in every day.

Where Simon completely loses my sympathy is when he says this:

"It would not take much adjustment to make this system a ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure over which we have no control."

This is just untrue, and gives the Privacy brigade a bad name. Somewhat hyperbolic to say the least. Dr Evil will have to install Bluetooth radios within 50-100 feet of every living person in every city in order to make this "ubiquitous", and it's a little unfair to say you have no control when you can , you know, just....turn.....Bluetooth......off.

Anyway - I think the project is way cool, and is genuinely interesting research. I also think that if they force people to opt in to the project (as in, alert people every time they're going to collect a bit of info) then the experiment is affected dramatically, and it alters the data. I think this is data worth analysing, not least because it may have clues for we might better manage how and where our identities are exposed by the electronic bag of tricks we carry around.

Posted by Sean at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Good article in last week's Silicon republic about Bluetooth being used in Proximity marketing, even if I do say so myself (I'm quoted in the article a few times). I particularly liked this tidbit which helps answer the question : "what proportion of phones (in general) have Bluetooth switched on?" :

An estimated 35,000 shoppers pass through the mall’s doors every day and around 20pc have their phone’s Bluetooth setting switched on by default.

Very interesting - as this kind of data can be hard to get. You need somewhere where they know their volume of foot traffic (like a mall) plus some Bluetooth-aware kit running (like a proximity marketing solution from Bluemedia) in order to get this tally. Most useful.

The Bluemedia stuff looks pretty cool and we plan to give it a closer look and report back down the line.

Posted by Sean at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We're users of the Zyb platform/service here at Rococo, and so we were tickled to see it make an acquisition which brought some Bluetooth location-awareness into the fold. Zyb has bought Imity, for an undisclosed amount. The key driver seems to have been to stitch the location-based awareness (aka Pocket Radar) that Imity had implemented in to the Zyb offering.

This usage scenario for Bluetooth (where Bluetooth's location-ness is connected to one or more social networks to tell you something about other people nearby) is now becoming very common, and I'd expect to see it as a standard element of any decent mobile social networking offering within 6-12 months. Imity also brings some very cool crowd-sensing stuff to the party (see their blog for examples).

Good news - we look forward to trying out the newly integrated service when it's been "Zyb'd" and wish everyone involved all the best.

Posted by Sean at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As discussed last year - mobile marketing with Bluetooth really seems to work, and the stats in terms on user-engagement, when it's implemented responsibly to the "right" target audience, are off the scale.

- Marketing targeted at men in clothes stores in India. Get them to play games while they shop. As they play and win, they get discounts.
- Football clubs using Bluetooth to market to fans in the UK. Free content and downloads for fans at the games. From BluePod Media.
- And another from the UK, posters that are "active". Particularly interesting as it's a local authority behind this (as opposed to a mega brand or marketing company).

Bluetooth is inherently local. As I have mentioned before here, there are some good angles to use Bluetooth to promote contextually relevant offers and information. By definition, when you connect to a Bluetooth service, to some extent, that service "knows" where you are ("in train station", "in football stadium", "in store") and can impute some things about what you're doing, or what you might be interested in. The benefits for marketing and promotions are obvious. Watch for Google to add some sizzle in this area as they get Android handsets out to market.

Posted by Sean at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been accepted to give a talk at the Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days Conference. This is on in late January in Santa Clara, California, and the lineup overall is looking pretty good.

Overview here.

We're going to cover the "Past, Present and Future of JSR82( Java Bluetooth APIs)". If there's anything you'd like us to cover (we have an hour) - drop a line!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Sean at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Will the shiny new GPhone have Java / Bluetooth on board? I think so.

Why?

Three simple reasons.

Advertising is going to feature heavily in the GPhone (eh, duh!). And so, who better to capitalise on the encouraging statistics around Bluetooth Marketing than The Google? They'd be mad not too. Plus, bet they'd do a sweet job on the marketing interaction. They'd "add value" to tie in options for their real-world vendors to connect with customers passing by. In one fell swoop, they'd be able to offer a way for you to deploy your ads as mobile coupons, proximity offers, yada yada. This alone is a good enough reason. But I promised three!

Presence. As in - connecting your phone to real-world stuff and real-world people, in real time, mixing together that online/on-phone stuff for magic and fun. You meet a friend. You both have GPhones. You both have "opted in" to Google's presence service (powered by Jaiku plus Google IM plus Google's new open social network platform). Updates automagically flow to your online profile. "Sean met Joe at 4ish today". Nice. Many options to drive value-add apps.

Java. Bluetooth by now is becoming standard on all mid to high end phones, and appearing as a feature on many of the low-cost models. Om says he reckons Java is slated for the GPhone. In which case, they'd just be mad not too. JSR82 ties Java to Bluetooth, opening Bluetooth to upper layer applications, and providing the crucial "near me" presence glue.

So then. Anyone know who in Google we'd talk to about our Market Leading JSR82 Technology?

:-)

Posted by Sean at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If these latest stats quoted are even remotely correct, then there's a bright future for Bluetooth in marketing.

Two killer factoids:

At a shopping centre in Newcastle, out of a possible 45,000 shoppers who were offered to receive Bluetooth content, over 20 per cent opted to download

Another recent study carried out on a global sample by Universal McCann demonstrates that opt-in Bluetooth content is the most popular form of mobile advertising, with 72 per cent of the global sample expressing their approval. Conversely, ‘interruptive’ mobile advertising, including banners on mobile internet pages and TV adverts on mobiles, were rejected by 61 per cent of respondents.

I'm quoting from this story about Bluetooth marketing in Cinemas in the UK. If these numbers hold up (and I see some anecdotal evidence that people are more willing to opt-in to Bluetooth campaigns), then we're going to see lots more Bluetooth marketing in the next 12-24 months.

Good news for JSR82 too I suspect.

Posted by Sean at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)