Bluetooth marketing – Fangs or no fangs?

We have an ongoing debate about Bluetooth marketing in the We Love Mobile office (you should work here, its sooo exciting), and are often asked by brands whether we think it should feature in campaigns. Such is the level of disagreement that last week we even found ourselves arguing about its merits in front of a client.

This blog was actually triggered by the news that T-Mobile are putting Bluetooth into their retail outlets in the UK, in order to spam (sorry, capture) people on the street as they walk past. The scheme is designed to encourage footfall and sales. The article doesn’t make it clear why consumers should engage (beyond the offer of a tawdry free gift) so we are maybe missing some of the marketing logic, but in the greater scheme of things I just don’t see the merit in this kind of Bluetooth. It seems an awful faff. Have they considered just having people dressed as mobile phones corralling people into the shop by handing out vouchers? That’s a joke by the way, but its probably just as effective in the long run, and equally annoying as being hit with a Bluetooth message from T-Mobile when you’re on your way to the Post Office.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I am one of the Bluetooth doubters in the office. My issues with Bluetooth are nothing new and are mostly down to the fact that it is a form of push marketing that when poorly executed is, in my opinion, really the lowest form of untargeted spam. My other issues with Bluetooth are around its practicality as a marketing channel. A large number of people nowadays don’t leave their Bluetooth switched on. This is partly down to early abuse (Bluedogging anyone?), the result being that there is a latent trust issue with the technology.

What this means for marketers is that there is nearly always a need to advertise the fact that you are running a Bluetooth campaign. So not only do you need to invest in the Bluetooth hardware, but you need to plough money into some hefty calls-to-action to ensure that anyone will engage. This tends to disappoint a lot of our clients, as they normally assume that ‘sticking in a Bluetooth box’ is all you need to do. Secondly, we often encourage brands to use mobile to engage with users over a period of time, what we refer to as ‘dialoguing’, rather than going for a single marketing hit. What Bluetooth lacks is any form of meaningful or re-usable user data capture, because the system does not record the mobile phone number. So, while you can crudely track post engagement activity, if someone engages with your Bluetooth campaign you can’t subsequently push them additional content. Compared with delivery ‘over the air’ i.e. via SMS, which does have the ability to data capture, then I think that Bluetooth only really has potential plus points in terms of user convenience and cost and then only in some quite specific contexts.

This is what the pro-Bluetooth camp stake their claim on. Their argument is that in a confined and trusted environment, such as at a gig, where the context and rationale for engagement is clear, then Bluetooth can potentially achieve a relatively high volume of engagement (easy to place calls to action, concentrated mass of people, no price shock). I don’t buy this. As I pointed out before, its not actually that convenient to the user in the greater scheme of things (especially when compared to a shortcode), as I demonstrate below, the user journey is pretty similar in terms of basic steps.

Bluetooth – Basic User Journey

1. See call to action
2. Turn bluetooth on
3. Wait for notification
4. Accept bluetooth push
5. Download
6. Find content
7. Access content

SMS Initiated – Basic User Journey

1. See call to action
2. Open new message
3. Compose message
4. Send
5. Wait for response
6. Open SMS/MMS
7. If simple SMS or MMS access content or click link
8. Access online content

In terms of cost to the user, consumers are really not bothered any more by the unit price of an SMS message, they don’t pay for MMS to their phone and they are increasingly unconcerned about mobile internet data charges, which can even be zero rated.

My prediction – when mobile internet usage is more commonplace and universally priced on all you can eat basis, then using that as the delivery channel for marketing alongside SMS/MMS and Wi-Fi options means that Bluespam (sorry Bluetooth) is dead in the water.

Fangs for the memory?