What is Bluetooth Marketing?

Zalim Nastaev
TeriMobile, Head of Marketing Department

As another innovative way to complement traditional marketing techniques along came Bluetooth marketing. This new concept has been in practice for not so long, and needs to get more attention from the consumers and marketers to start evolving in more or less significant scales.

We aim in this brief article to disclose the basic features and trends of Bluetooth technology as a marketing communication tool, so the consumers should be made aware of the technology, and improve their thinking of it, or make it even more negative, if you like.

The Rise of Bluetooth

Bluetooth appeared as a result of the work of a development group consisting of the representatives of several telecom giants: Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba and Nokia. These companies combined their resources to create a unified technology for wireless connection of mobile devices. Some time later the group working on the project (The Bluetooth Special Interest Group – the Bluetooth SIG) expanded, companies like 3COM/Palm, Axis Communication, Motorola, Compaq, Dell, Qualcomm, Lucent Technologies, UK Limited, Xircom entering the group. Today, the group combines the efforts of as many as over 4000 companies working on the development of a free and open specification of Bluetooth. This unified work has created the main advantage for Bluetooth – it is now supported by most of the mobile devices that are produced nowadays. Another advantage when compared to, say, IR signal, is that the users can exchange data through radio waves without setting a direct visible contact.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Today, penetration of Bluetooth into mobile phones in EU, for example, is at a rate of 35% – 42%, while up to 2008 it is expected to rise as high as 80%. 2006 was the year that Bluetooth Penetration reached the One Billion mark. IDC forecasts that by 2007 more than 433 million Bluetooth devices will ship worldwide, which is an estimated market penetration of 74 percent. Bluetooth Location-based media distribution also took a major step forward.

The Rise of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Mobile Marketing

In that early period of initial development of the technology nobody would have thought of using Bluetooth as a marketing tool. Traditional media were striving and dominating the marketing communications, while various viral campaigns were just taking their first steps. However mobile technology was taking a rapid growth and along came agencies offering mobile as an alternative media to TV, radio and print. The growth was so fast that the penetration level of mobile channel has exceeded the Internet. Thus, the advantage that the mobile advertisers could use was the reach to the end consumers. But the major advantage was, of course, the targeting opportunities – the personal nature of the mobile devices became a grand, long-awaited opportunity to develop personalized communication programmes, and the two-way nature of mobile channel gave the opportunity to create the interactive communications, where the response of the communication target is valued even higher than the messages originated by the advertisers.

Some opponents would argue that the mobile marketing is just another threat of spamming – none can be assured that the companies would not start sending out messages of no interest to every single mobile user who has no interest in their services. Do they make sense? On the first glance, this threat is possible. However, let’s look at this problem from a company’s viewpoint. None knows how much time and how many efforts brands allocate to create a positive image with the customers. And everybody knows that this image can be spoilt in just one minute - just a trifle, small mistake, and the rumours go viral. Next day you have to start all over again. The brands do realize the danger of delivering messages to mobile users without any system. The mobile marketing players have learned the lessons of its elder brother – Internet and email. The Mobile Marketing Association and a number of other bodies were established to consolidate the mobile industry players. The latter are in close contact with each other, discussing the issues arising during their activities. This consolidation and collaboration has changed the traditional way we look at the industries: and this way has the name – mobile players are working within the so called ecosystem, where technology and content providers, brands and agencies, aggregators and operators work in close collaboration to stimulate the growth of the industry.

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