The “all-in-one” Bluetooth marketing fallacy

July 23, 2009
Over the last few weeks, I have increasingly heard about Proximity Marketing (Bluetooth Marketing) providers offering customers one off deals for Proximity Marketing solutions. The typical scenario is somebody is looking to use proximity marketing, they just want to buy the equipment, not have to have any contact with the provider again once they’ve bought the device and off they go. Sounds good, but a few realities about how quality Proximity Marketing systems work….
For a start, the handset database and fingerprint database (which is used to detect the phone model) need to be kept up to date. There’s something like 20 – 30 new handsets that come onto the market every month, six months down the line – with how many phones will the content work with?
Secondly, what about when phones start appearing with new connection technologies e.g. WiFi, do you have to buy another box? Isn’t it better to be part of a system that gives you an upgrade path, together with software updates to ensure your system is always at the cutting edge.
Thirdly, if you want control of your Proximity Marketing system, so you can manage campaigns for yourself or on behalf of your customers, you are likely to need access to a management system. If that is the case, do you want a system that will constantly be updated with new statistics analyses, new capabilities, and kept current or do you want to stick with something that never changes. Windows 7 or Windows 3.1?
Fourthly, to offer you a genuinely reliable system that stays working 24/7, your management system should have backups, redundancy, automatic server switchover in place.
Lastly, service and support.  I have been talking to a wide number of Proximity Marketing providers recently who are interested in our new Bluegiga upgrade pack. A regular concern I hear with smaller providers is the lack of support when things go wrong. Who’s waiting there on the end of the phone for your call? Is it only office hours, only in one country? Or can you get hold of them any time, any place?
All these things make the difference in whether the campaign is successful or not. All these things cost money each and every month to provide to customers. We don’t want these features to ever run out, and hence we charge a monthly fee for our management system Hyperhub.
Be careful, if you are being offered an all in one pay up front only package, how are these things being paid for? Are they being paid for? Or are they just missing? If they are paid for, how long is your provider budgeting on you needing it for? What happens when the money runs out?
Hypertag, like many others, is happy to offer bulk deals with fees over several years paid for in one go, particularly with implementations that are grant funded, because that is important.
But the lesson is, if you are parting with your hard earned cash, be sure what you are parting with it in return for? And make sure you have a solution that will evolve as your business does.
Jonathan Morgan

crossedOver the last few weeks, I have increasingly heard about Proximity Marketing (Bluetooth Marketing) providers offering customers one-off deals for Proximity Marketing solutions. The typical scenario is a company looking to use proximity marketing, they just want to buy the equipment and not have any further contact with the provider once they’ve bought the equipment. This sounds enticingly good, but here are a few realities about how quality Proximity Marketing systems work if you are to have a good experience:

  • The handset and fingerprint database (which is used to detect the mobile phone model) need to be kept up to date. There’s something like 20 – 30 new handsets that come onto the market every month, six months down the line – with how many phones will the content work with?
  • What about when phone models start appearing with new connection technologies e.g. WiFi, do you have to buy another box? Isn’t it better to be part of a system that gives you a planned upgrade path where you can build on what you have already bought rather than having to throw the box away, together with software updates to ensure your system is always at the cutting edge.
  • If you want control of your Proximity Marketing system, so you can manage campaigns for yourself or on behalf of your customers, you are likely to need access to a management system. If that is the case, do you want a system that will constantly be updated with new statistics analyses, new capabilities, and kept current or do you want to stick with something that will be stuck in the past?
  • To offer you a genuinely reliable system that stays working 24/7, your management system should be resiliant and have backup, redundancy and automatic server switchover infrastructure monitoring facilities in place.
  • Service and support are critical.  I have been talking to a wide number of Proximity Marketing providers recently who are interested in our new Bluegiga upgrade pack. A regular concern I hear about smaller providers, is the lack of support when things go wrong. Who’s available on the end of the phone for your call? Is it only during office hours, only in one country? Or can you get hold of them any time, any place?

All these things make the difference to whether your bluetooth marketing campaign is successful or not. All these things cost us money each and every month to provide them to our customers. We don’t want these features to ever stop for our customers, and hence we charge a monthly fee for our management system, Hyperhub.

Be careful and thoughtful if you are being offered an all-in-one pay up front only package, how are these things being paid for? Are they being paid for? Or are they just missing? If they are paid for, how long is your provider budgeting on you needing it for?

Hypertag, like other quality providers, is happy to offer bulk deals with fees spread over several years paid for up front, particularly with implementations that are grant funded, because that is important and a key market requirement.

But the lesson is, if you are parting with your hard earned cash, be sure what you are getting in return? Further, make sure you have a solution that will evolve as your business does.

Jonathan Morgan

Leave a Comment » | All, Bluetooth marketing campaigns | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jonathan Morgan

Proximity Marketing Audit, Raising The Bar!

July 21, 2009

glassBluepod Media have run the first ABCe audited campaign and attained 2 star accreditation. This audit was performed to industry standards and metrics agreed by JICWEBS. The Proximity Marketing (also known as Bluetooth Marketing) campaign was measured against 3 key metrics:

  1. Unique Bluetooth devices
  2. Bluetooth downloads
  3. Exposed Bluetooth devices

These three measurements are key and all Proximity Marketing suppliers must guarantee these to be accurate for every campaign they run. However does this limited set of metrics go far enough when auditing a Proximity Marketing campaign?

It’s fair to say that Proximity Marketing poses many challenges and in order to assess the quality of any Proximity Marketing campaign a far more in depth analysis is required.

Quality Bluetooth Marketing providers, like Hypertag among others, always consider the following additional metrics:

  1. Pre campaign traffic: A measure of the amount Bluetooth traffic before a campaign goes live.
  2. Pick up time: How long does it take for a handset to be offered content?  With a badly implemented solution this may be in the order of minutes in an environment such as a packed crowd at a football match.
  3. Download time: How long does it take to download the content? Hypertag believes that a campaign experience that lasts longer than 30 seconds per download leads to a bad user experience, especially as many mobile phones do not provide a progress bar.
  4. Handset compatability: What percentage of handsets that receive content (if running a campaign distributing mobile phone applications)  are handsets that do not support the applications received?
  5. Range: If a 5m range was desired, within a defined deviation was this achieved?
  6. Overlap: Within an environment such as retail, did the campaign overlap into adjacent retail spaces?

In conclusion, the ABCe audit metrics are a real step forward, but Hypertag believes that additional work is required to raise the bar to a level where the Proximity Marketing industry can be confident that they ensure quality campaign delivery.

Leave a Comment » | All, Bluetooth technology | Permalink
Posted by gtricker

Concerned with Bluetooth marketing security?

June 23, 2009

hackA commenter on this blog recently expressed a strong concern about security when offering Bluetooth marketing services in public places. The commenter was concerned that consumers would be inundated with hacker generated unwanted downloads akin to SPAM called bluejacking. Along with this is another security concern called bluebugging where a phone hijacked to make free calls.  An even worse concern is the possibility of a hacker stealing address books or other personal information from a consumers’ phone – which is called bluesnarfing.

Clearly the belts and braces method of preventing any of these occurring is, of course, for you have your Bluetooth radio turned off on your phone or your discoverability turned off. But honestly, this is the equivalent of telling a PC user that if they are to avoid security problems then they should not connect to the Internet! It’s just not that realistic as good advice now that Bluetooth usage is so widespread extending even to cars.

The point at issue here is that nobody can ever avoid the possibility of their security being compromised somewhere along the line as its one of the characteristics of living in the 21st century. Moreover, no service provider, standards provider or software author could ever guarantee that their systems are 100% secure. If they did, nobody would believe them. We only need to look at the number of never-ending security patches we receive each month from Microsoft to see that.

Let’s get back to bluejacking, bluebugging bluesnarfing. I am interested in getting a better understanding of whether they are of real concern in 2009 even though, from Hypertag’s perspective, we have never had an identifiable example of this in all the years of running large Bluetooth marketing campaigns around the world.

When a Bluetooth radio on a mobile phone is turned on, there are two ways a hacker can possibly interact with that phone; through the use of OBEX and through pairing.

OBEX or Object Exchange: This is the Bluetooth mobile phone standard for exchanging business cards, data or even applications and this is the technology that Hypertag uses to download content if the consumer actively decides they wish to accept it onto their mobile phone.

It should be remembered that even if the consumer is highly concerned about security and has their Bluetooth radio on their mobile turned off they can still safely interact with a Hypertag content server though OBEX.

As they pass near a Hypertag content server, they will see a poster that asks them to “turn on their Bluetooth if they want to download the content on offer.” If they do, they will then receive an image that clearly identifies that they are connected to the Hypertag server and asks “whether they wish to down load the content.” Thus the consumer knows where the content is coming from. Once downloaded, the consumer is free to turn their Bluetooth radio off again or make it non-discoverable.

Is it possible for a hacker to be lurking close by ready to spoof the Hypertag content server and hack into a consumer’s phone? Yes, it’s possible but it’s highly unlikely in the real world. One rule of hacking states that the value of the content has to be worth more than the effort required and, to my mind, this does just not pass that test. In any case, according to guidance from the Bluetooth SIG (Bluetooth Special Interest Group), “Phone owners who receive bluejack messages should refuse to add the contacts to their address book.” With nearly all new phones, it is now necessary for the owner to take some action to allow Bluetooth access, so theft of data or media (or even the ability to push stuff into the phone) must be pretty low.

Bluetooth pairing: Anyone who has used a Bluetooth hands-free earpiece understands pairing. The process is initiated by turning on the mobile phone Bluetooth radio and making it discoverable. The hands-free earpiece then ‘discovers’ the phone and ‘pairs’ with it. A PIN is exchanged and all data traffic is then encrypted between the phone and the earpiece. Once achieved, discoverability is turned off until it is again needed. Hypertag does not use pairing for Bluetooth marketing applications.

Clearly, consumers should NOT ever pair with any device that they are not sure about – especially in a public location. This is plain common sense and will prevent any possibility of bluebugging or bluesnarfing.

The million dollar question – should brand owners, retailers or media agencies be really concerned that a Bluetooth marketing campaign could be hijacked by hackers?

According the authoritative industry standards body that looks after Bluetooth standards, the Bluetooth SIG:

  • “Only specific older Bluetooth enabled phones are susceptible to bluesnarfing.”
  • “Both Nokia and Sony Ericsson have developed software upgrades for phones vulnerable to bluesnarfing and bluebugging. Both companies have also worked hard to make sure new phones coming to market will not be susceptible to these attacks.”
  • “The Bluetooth SIG continues to study security risks associated with the technology and determine their viability as the technology spreads and develops.”
  • “Theoretically a hacker can monitor and record activities in the frequency spectrum and then use a computer to regenerate the PIN codes being exchanged. This requires specially built hardware and thorough knowledge of Bluetooth systems.” “This is an academic analysis of Bluetooth security. What this analysis outlines is possible, but it is highly unlikely for a normal user to ever encounter such an attack.”

We agree with these observations and my personal view is that the occurrence of Bluetooth hacking of any sort is only a remote possibility. Hypertag’s experience to date confirms this. Of course it is possible, but I believe it’s far more possible that I could download spyware through my PC browser than come across a Bluetooth hacker; however, we should all remain alert to the possibility.

Googling the Internet looking for up-to-date concerns about bluesnarfing seems to only turn up articles dating from the early days of the Bluetooth standard. Yes, we should always be concerned about security issues when providing any sort of public communication system, but we believe that the benefits of implementing Bluetooth marketing campaigns far outweigh the risk of bluejacking or bluesnarfing – until we’re proved wrong. In that case, we will update our technology to address the issue.

Chris Gare

2 Comments | All, Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth technology | Permalink
Posted by Chris Gare

A summer’s walk through Lathkill Dale…

June 16, 2009
A summer’s walk through Lathkill Dale….
A few weekends ago I was in the Peak District enjoying the summer weather. We decided to walk through Lathkill Dale from Over Haddon to Monyash as the weather was hot, and we heard the orchids were out.
Hypertag provides Natural England via the Peak Experience organisation with Proximity technology for Lathkill Dale. This is a pilot which we hope will be extended, and ultimately rolled out amongst other rural locations under Natural England’s remit.
The premise is how do you put information in the hands of the walkers to help them get more out of their walk? Mobile is the perfect solution as you can compress a huge amount of information into a mobile Java Application, and structure that information so that the walker can access what they need quickly and easily. This offers much wider possibilities than would be available with just the static signs or via leaflets that could be distributed.
At Lathkill Dale, Hypertags powered either by ultra long life batteries or a solar panel (in the case of one tag) allow the walker to download the information to their phone as they walk past five points of interest.
Each point is clearly marked with a Nature Bytes sign, and gives out a different piece of content, from the core Peak Experience application to the sounds of birds the walker will hear as they walk through the Dale, to photos of butterflies they are likely to encounter.
Be sure to look out for the Nature Bytes signs this summer if you are out and about in the Peak District.

larkhill1A few weekends ago I was in the Peak District enjoying the summer weather. We decided to walk through Lathkill Dale from Over Haddon to Monyash as the weather was hot, and we heard the orchids were out.

Hypertag provides Natural England via the Peak Experience organisation with Proximity technology (otherwise known as ‘Bluetooth Marketing’) for Lathkill Dale. This is a pilot which we hope will be extended, and ultimately rolled out amongst other rural locations under Natural England’s remit.

The premise is how do you put information in the hands of the walkers to help them get more out of their walk? The use of mobile phones is the perfect solution as you can compress a huge amount of information into a mobile Java Application, and structure that information so that the walker can access what they need quickly and easily. This offers much wider possibilities than would be available with just the static signs or via leaflets that could be distributed.

larkhill3At Lathkill Dale, Hypertags powered either by ultra long life batteries or a solar panel (in the case of a single Hypertag) allow the walker to download the information to their phone as they walk past five points of interest.

Each point is clearly marked with a Nature Bytes sign, and gives out a different piece of content, from the core Peak Experience application to the sounds of birds the walker will hear as they walk through the Dale, to photos of butterflies they are likely to encounter.

Be sure to look out for the Nature Bytes signs this summer if you are out and about in the Peak District.

Jonathan Morgan

Leave a Comment » | Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth marketing campaigns | Permalink
Posted by Jonathan Morgan

File format error! – A Story from a British Music Festival….

June 5, 2009
File format error! – A Story from a British Music Festival….
You go to the free phone charging station and see an a opportunity to download a free GIG guide on your phone, “great” you think, just what I need, so you fumble around your new Samsung trying to find out how to switch the Bluetooth on (not being one of the 25% of people in the UK who now have it permanently switched. How could you?, on your last phone it killed the battery!)
Finally, you get the Bluetooth switched on and wait to receive the promised Festival GIG guide. You wait. You wait. Then if you are lucky you are asked for a pin code, even luckier – you may know it.
Then full of anticipation, instead of the GIG guide you get the file format error message. Not I imagine the great consumer experience the sponsoring brand planned you to have – and SO unnecessary.
This experience can be avoided in lots of ways, for example by employing accurate device detection software on the proximity device; by using uptodate handset functionality and phone fingerprint databases; by providing backup content (MP3 clips, videos, animations etc) for handsets NOT able to receive Java applications over Bluetooth and by providing clear instructions for music fans telling them what to do and what to expect.
It could have been worse…
Some providers, specifically one in Ireland, but probably not confined to the Emerald Isle, don’t care about the consumer experience, as a matter of policy! They believe that if handsets cannot receive content over more than 10 – 15 meters, tough on fans, “its free – what have they got to complain about!  They’ll offer the content over 100m anyway and leave music fans disappointed when fans can’t download to their handset in the full knowledge that there is no way that handsets can receive content over this distance. Shocking but true!

musicfestivalBluetooth Marketing campaigns can sometimes go wrong in a big way. You go to the free phone charging station and see an a opportunity to download a free GIG guide on your phone, “great” you think, just what I need, so you fumble around your new Samsung phone trying to find out how to switch the Bluetooth on (not being one of the 25% of people in the UK who now have it permanently switched. How could you?, on your last phone it killed the battery!)

Finally, you get the Bluetooth switched on and wait to receive the promised Festival GIG guide. You wait. You wait. Then if you are lucky you are asked for a pin code, even luckier – you may know it.

Then full of anticipation, instead of the GIG guide you get a File Format Error Message! Not I imagine the great consumer experience the sponsoring brand planned you to have – and SO unnecessary.

This experience can be avoided in lots of ways, for example by employing accurate device detection software on the proximity device; by using up-to-date handset functionality and phone fingerprint databases; by providing backup content (MP3 clips, videos, animations etc) for handsets NOT able to receive Java applications over Bluetooth and by providing clear instructions for music fans telling them what to do and what to expect.

It could have been worse…

Some providers don’t care about the consumer experience, as a matter of policy! They believe that if handsets cannot receive content over more than 10 – 15 meters, tough on fans, “its free – what have they got to complain about!” They’ll offer the content over 100m anyway and leave music fans disappointed when fans can’t download to their handset in the full knowledge that there is no way that handsets can receive content over this distance. Shocking but true!

Elaine Haines

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Posted by elainehaines

Why you should use a quality Bluetooth marketing provider? (Part 2)

June 4, 2009
Following on from Part 1 of this post, I would to look at some more issues that separate quality Bluetooth marketing providers from budget ones.
More content types can be downloaded
Budget providers often offer the ability to send out only one type of content or a very limited set of content. Hypertag and other quality providers allow customers to run campaigns from the simple through to the very complex. Indeed, bespoke campaigns that have never been run before can be created from scratch to meet the exacting requirements of individual brands. That can’t be done with a budget system that only has a simple interface supplied on a CD. Delivering complex campaigns needs an advanced content server that underpins the system and the technical knowledge and understanding to know how best to deploy it.
Spending less
If you want to run a campaign with more than one Bluetooth content server, it will often be cheaper to run with a quality supplier like Hypertag. Hypertag’s expertise lies in its internally-developed software. This software can be updated and campaigns managed remotely, which means as new features are added, you benefit straight away. As technology develops, you don’t have to buy another Bluetooth content server because the server can be upgraded with new features automatically. In essence you are future-proofing your investment.
Benchmarking
Like some other quality providers, Hypertag has stored all the statistics from all of its campaigns it has run over the last seven years from around the world. This means it can advise you how to deploy the campaign for best success, because it knows what works – and what doesn’t. A budget Bluetooth marketing provider will not have central usage monitoring and therefore each ‘campaign’ has to be deployed in isolation of every other one with no cross-over learning possible. What’s the point in saving a few pounds on the equipment if it’s going to be a wasted? Isn’t it better to use equipment where at least you will know whether your campaign was successful, and how you could improve it for next time?
Experience and advice
Plugging in a budget Bluetooth content server and hoping for the best is no way to achieve great results. If all you want to do is prove you can send content over Bluetooth, use a laptop. If you want to use a Bluetooth server to achieve a really effective campaign, you need to work with a quality provider. Frankly, the technology is the straightforward bit. The clever bit is in knowing how to use it to achieve the results you need.
Increase retail sales by 40%; Hypertag knows how to do it. Increase conversion through online sales by 40%; Hypertag knows how to do it. Want to pick up subscribers to your online news service; Hypertag knows how to do it. Want to build a database, activate your sponsorship, create some buzz; Hypertag knows how to use the technology and will be able to advise you how to deploy the technology in your environment to have great results. It knows this because unlike many providers, it has direct involvement in every campaign meaning it learns what and doesn’t work from every campaign that runs on its servers. This leads to a dramatically shorter learning curve for you and less money spent to achieve the best results.
Service
The final reason you should consider a quality provider like Hypertag is service. It’s all well and good buying your Budget Bluetooth system off the Internet, but what happens when it doesn’t quite work like you hoped? Who do you phone? Where do you go for help? Hypertag thinks that it’s important to have someone you could talk to – an expert who knows what they are doing. With Hypertag you have that 24/7 if you need it. No matter where in the world you are, what you are trying to do, if you can get to your phone, we are here to help.
Bluetooth marketing is new and it’s not as easy to achieve a successful campaign as you might think. If you want to make the best of your campaign, you are going to have questions, and you want someone to be available with answers that are relevant to you.
So what’s the bottom line?
If you have £75 ($100) and you want to prove content can be sent to a phone over Bluetooth, place that £75 back in your pocket, find a computer with Bluetooth and go for it.
If you want to really achieve success with Bluetooth marketing, pick up the phone, or reach for your computer, and get in touch with me (Jonathan), Elaine, Francesca, Elliot, Liz, Graham or anyone else at Hypertag, and we can start to help you achieve great results from one of the most powerful and accountable marketing methods available today.
Of course you could approach one of our quality competitors, but of course we hope that you don’t!
Jonathan Morgan

hmv1Following on from Part 1 of this post, I would now like to look at some more issues that separate quality Bluetooth marketing providers from budget ones.

More content types can be downloaded

Budget providers often offer the ability to send out only one type of content or a very limited set of content. Hypertag and other quality providers allow customers to run campaigns from the simple through to the very complex. Indeed, bespoke campaigns that have never been run before can be created from scratch to meet the exacting requirements of individual brands. That can’t be done with a budget system that only has a simple interface supplied on a CD. Delivering complex campaigns needs an advanced content server that underpins the system and the technical knowledge and understanding to know how best to deploy it.

Spending less

If you want to run a campaign with more than one Bluetooth content server (We call these ‘Hypertags’), it will often be cheaper to useh a quality supplier like Hypertag. Hypertag’s expertise lies in its internally-developed software. This software can be updated and campaigns managed remotely, which means as new features are added, you benefit straight away. As technology develops, you don’t have to buy another Bluetooth content server because the server can be upgraded with new features automatically. In essence you are future-proofing your investment.

Benchmarking

Hypertag has stored all the statistics from all of its campaigns it has run over the last seven years from around the world. This means it can advise you how to deploy the campaign for best success because it knows what works – and of course what doesn’t. A budget Bluetooth marketing provider will not have central usage monitoring and therefore each ‘campaign’ has to be deployed in isolation of every other one with no cross-over learning possible. What’s the point in saving a few pounds on the equipment if it’s going to be a wasted? Isn’t it better to use equipment where at least you will know whether your campaign was successful, and how you could improve it for next time?

Experience and advice

Plugging in a budget Bluetooth content server and hoping for the best is no way to achieve great results. If all you want to do is prove you can send content over Bluetooth, use a laptop. If you want to use a Bluetooth server to achieve a really effective campaign, you need to work with a quality provider. Frankly, the technology is the straightforward bit. The clever bit is in knowing how to use it to achieve the results you need.

Increase retail sales by 40%; Hypertag knows how to do it. Increase conversion through online sales by 40%; Hypertag knows how to do it. Want to pick up subscribers to your online news service; Hypertag knows how to do it. Want to build a database, activate your sponsorship, create some buzz; Hypertag knows how to use the technology and is able to advise you how to deploy the technology in your environment to have great results. It knows this because unlike many providers, it has direct involvement in every campaign meaning it learns what and doesn’t work from every campaign that runs on its servers. This leads to a dramatically shorter learning curve for you and less money spent to achieve the best results.

Service

The final reason you should consider a quality provider like Hypertag, is service. It’s all well and good buying your Budget Bluetooth box off the Internet, but what happens when it doesn’t quite work like you hoped? Who do you phone? Where do you go for help? Hypertag thinks that it’s important to have someone you could talk to – an expert who knows what they are doing. With Hypertag you have that 24/7 if you need it. No matter where in the world you are, what you are trying to do, if you can get to your phone, we are here to help.

Bluetooth marketing is new and it’s not as easy to achieve a successful campaign as you might think. If you want to make the best of your campaign, you are going to have questions, and you want someone to be available with answers that are relevant to you.

So what’s the bottom line?

If you have £75 ($100) and you want to prove content can be sent to a phone over Bluetooth, place that £75 back in your pocket, find a computer with Bluetooth and go for it.

If you want to really achieve success with a Bluetooth marketing campaign, pick up the phone, or reach for your computer, and get in touch with me (Jonathan), Elaine, Liz, Graham or anyone else at Hypertag and we can start to help you achieve great results from one of the most powerful and accountable marketing methods available today.

Of course you could also approach one of our quality competitors, but of course we hope that you don’t!

Jonathan Morgan

7 Comments | Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth marketing campaigns | Permalink
Posted by Jonathan Morgan

Long Range Bluetooth Marketing

May 27, 2009

longlHave you ever come across a specialist ‘Long Range Bluetooth Marketing’ provider, who can deliver advertising content to consumers’ mobile phones who are 100m, 500m or even 1km away from the transmitter?

As Head of Technology at Hypertag, I am intrigued to know whether this technology can actually work. At Hypertag we spend our time developing proximity marketing solutions where we endeavour to limit Bluetooth range to clearly branded zones so the consumer is fully aware they will receive branded content, rather than sending unsolicited content to unknowing consumers. When this happens, we are all affected as it gives our industry a bad name by tainting us with an image of spamming.

In my experience of developing Proximity Marketing solutions, there must be huge technical challenges to providing a long range Bluetooth Marketing solutions.

In the first instance, let’s take 100m Bluetooth Marketing, now any Class 1 Bluetooth device will report being able to send data over 100m, great you say, here’s a Class 1 Bluetooth Access Server ( Class 1 = 100mW, Class 2 = 2.5mW, Class 3, 1mW ) so I can do 100m Bluetooth Marketing. The big issue here is that the majority of mobile phones have Class 2 (10m) radios to reduce the phone cost and besides who needs more than 10m Bluetooth range on their phone? The net effect of this for a Proximity Marketing solution is that you’ll be lucky to achieve 30m range in practice.

So we now have a standard Class 1 Access Server and know we can only actually achieve ranges of 30m, but for my particular application that’s ok. Next question is; how many mobile phones will be within range of my Access Server? Considering it will be able to see mobile phones within a 30m radius, I would imagine in a typical football stadium (a location much loved by the Long Range Bluetooth Marketeer!) this will be in the order of 100’s of mobile phones.

Now my big question is; how could any Bluetooth Access Server reliably send content to all these mobile phones? Bluetooth’s original purpose was really to connect hands-free headsets to mobile phones and for connecting computer peripherals to PCs, neither of which are anywhere near as demanding as connecting to 100’s of mobile phones reliably. Bluetooth technology only allows 7 simultaneous connections to be made concurrently. Its download data rates are relatively low and experience shows to expect these to be significantly reduced when a large number of Bluetooth devices are in close proximity interfering with each other.

At Hypertag we have optimised our solutions to download content efficiently in high load environments by using multiple Bluetooth radios, while reducing the range of transmission so our downloads are targeted and keeping the content size to a sensible maximum. The majority of our campaigns will operate at less than 5m range with great results and without upsetting the other mobile phone users further away. I suspect that any solution that attempts to broadcast advertising content using Bluetooth over a wide area will suffer reliability problems and great consumer dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction will also extend to brand running the campaign.

In summary if your brand or agency is considering using ‘Long Range Bluetooth Marketing’ I would strongly advise considering a managed ‘Proximity Marketing’ solution with managed range contol as the only way to advertise your brand reliably and in a non-intrusive way.

Graham Tricker

8 Comments | Bluetooth technology | Permalink
Posted by gtricker

Why you should use a quality Bluetooth marketing provider? (Part 1)

May 24, 2009

nokia1I would like to take head on a question I am asked or overhear being asked nearly every week:

“I want to do Bluetooth  Marketing but why do I need someone like Hypertag when there are budget Bluetooth Marketing providers out there offering systems for as little as £75 ($100) ?”

I would advise you to always use a quality provider and I have summarised what I see as some of the key reasons:

Strong technical benefits

There are many technical reasons why quality Bluetooth marketing solutions who make significant investments in software development, provide better performance; here are just a couple of examples.

a. reliable simultaneous content download to several phones

If you have Bluetooth on your computer, it’s not that difficult to work out how to send an image from the computer to a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone. Frankly that’s the easy bit. If all you want to be able to do was that, then you would never need a Bluetooth Marketing provider in the first place. Budget providers only offer systems that work on the same basis.

Budget Bluetooth systems typically use only one Bluetooth transmitter. This works acceptably in a situation where you only have a low number of phones near a single Bluetooth system, but breaks down the minute you have many Bluetooth enabled phones in the vicinity. In most Bluetooth Marketing situations, it will be the case that many Bluetooth phones will be in the area and it is likely that many consumers will want to download content at the same time.

Hypertag uses multiple Bluetooth transceivers and antennae and uses sophisticated company-developed software that works out the optimum use of the transceiver to offer consumers the best experience without waiting for an existing download to complete. A simple computer equipped with a Bluetooth dongle can’t offer anything like the same experience.

b. reliable back-end networking

Budget providers often offer network-connected Bluetooth content servers that use a simple USB modem to manage the Bluetooth marketing system. If you have ever used this type of phone with a laptop, you are sure to be aware that an occasional crash occurs. The same will happen with a budget Bluetooth content server. Hypertag uses special modems and GPRS data network suppliers that are designed for 24/7 operation as having poor backhaul will often require the expense of a physical service visit – which will almost certainly blow your campaign budget!

1.    Priority on download

This capability creates clear blue water between Hypertag and other quality providers – not just budget providers. Most Bluetooth content servers prioritise ‘pick up’, which means people receive the messages offering them the content download on their phone quickly but then they have to wait longer for the download. This is because the phone is so busy sending those initial messages to every phone in the vicinity that they do not have the time to do the download!

Hypertag uniquely prioritises download. We send the pick up message and then immediately ensure that the mobile phone has received the requested content before we move onto pick up another phone. This means people who receive the download message receive their content as quickly as possible. Through years of experience, we have found that this gives the best experience for consumers and leads to higher download levels.

Unfortunately, campaigns using budget Bluetooth marketing providers, will see lots of people being alerted in their campaigns, but few people will be able to download the content in a reasonable timeframe. They will just run out of patience and walk away very unhappy. This is not a good use of campaign budgets.

More phones will be compatible with the Bluetooth content server.

To work well, a Bluetooth content server needs a database of all mobile phones in current use. This is because every model of mobile phone has different capabilities in terms of what content can be shown and the aspect ratios and sizes of their screens. Before any content can be downloaded, the phone’s display capabilities needs to be identified.

Our phone database, which has over 1,500 different phones, is growing all the time. It’s kept up to date with new phones as they come onto the market. For budget providers, the costs of keeping such a database up to date are just too great. Furthermore, if you haven’t been keeping the phone database up to date over a period of time, it’s very hard to go back and provide support for phones that aren’t sold anymore.

One challenge is that Bluetooth content servers can’t recognise the exact model from the phone’s Bluetooth signature. All quality providers have to use a way of determining  what model is requesting the download from information that is available. Hypertag calls this the phone’s ‘fingerprint’. To do this well, you have to have a very large fingerprint database and some clever software to work out which fingerprint is which phone and put its information together with that you have in your phone database.

To make this task really challenging, two completely different phones can fingerprint the same way. To uniquely identify a phone reliably, so that the vast majority of users receive the right content for their phone, you need some serious technical investment. It’s very unlikely that a budget provider will have any capability approaching this in their system.

Only experienced Bluetooth marketing providers have the means and the ability to implement these types of systems and keep them up to date.

In part 2, we will look at some more reasons why it is best to work with quality Bluetooth marketing providers.

Jonathan Morgan.

Leave a Comment » | Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth marketing campaigns | Permalink
Posted by Jonathan Morgan

Bluetooth marketing and Bluetooth in-car hands free

May 12, 2009

fiestaWhen I read many of the blogs that talk about Bluetooth or Proximity Marketing (BPM), it’s often stated that the concept is ‘edgy’ and is pushing the boundaries of innovative ways to actively engage with consumers. How could anyone disagree!

However, although BPM is now widely used as an extension to conventional passive advertising campaigns by big brands, it is still early days. BPM has been around as long as Bluetooth standards have existed so it can never be said that the growth rate of Bluetooth marketing has been stellar when compared to some services.  On consideration, there are several reasons as to why this might be so.

If we go along with this thought for a moment, to my mind  one of the principle reasons for this is to do with Bluetooth and it’s use on mobile phones.  Specifically, most mobile phone users have Bluetooth permanently turned off! This does seem a little strange  when you consider that one of principle uses of Bluetooth was to enable hands-free usage of mobile phones. This not only helped with usability but also provided a solution to possibility of RF radiation creating health problems.  This, at one time, seemed very compelling reasons for mobile phone users to use Bluetooth – but strangely it just didn’t happen.

This makes the offering a service that actually relies on consumers having Bluetooth turned on on their phones rather problematical one would think!? The problem was that having Bluetooth turned on had real negative impact on battery life. Moreover, there was much publicity about the potential problem of Bluejacking which turned out to be relatively harmless concern.

Having Bluetooth turned off is not such a major concern for BPM as there is usually a local ‘call to action’ asking consumers to turn on their mobile phone Bluetooth with the incentive of downloading goodies as they pass. This concept works pretty well in practice. However a real reason and need that pushes consumers to have Bluetooth permanently turned on on their mobile phones could have a major positive impact on the BPM industry. In my opinion, has been missing to date, but it could be that this is all about to change.

Secretly creeping up on us is the concept of  integrated Bluetooth hands free operation in cars. This is concerned with Bluetooth controlled hands-free telephone and voice control systems in cars. You may say “so what?” as the concept has been around for some time in the form of retro-fit kits and built into the platform of top-end cars. However, these Bluetooth based systems have now moved from the fringe to the core.

With strong legislation about the use of mobile phones in cars, car manufacturers have been busy incorporating Bluetooth capability into the heart of the telematics  (communication platform ) of cars, rather than being just being an after-market accessory. The concept is now so key to the control on in-car items such as  phones and audio, that it now being made available even on bottom of the range cars. By way of example, it is even available on the popular and low-cost Ford Fiesta !

Clearly, with wide-scale and availability and use of Bluetooth as a key element in hands free use of mobiles in cars, then car-driving consumers will always leave Bluetooth permanently switched on on their mobile phones. This could could have a positive impact on the download uptake and success experienced with BPM campaigns – especially at motor shows! Moreover, it opens a whole new array of applications but more on this later.

Photo credit: Fiesta Bluetooth hands-free telephone and voice control system, Ford UK

Chris Gare

2 Comments | All, Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth technology | Permalink
Posted by Chris Gare

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