Say it with mobile phones

India is one of the biggest markets for mobile phones and it has become the necessary gadget for anyone. Advertisers are increasingly using mobile phones for their one-to-one marketing campaigns. Earlier it was done through telemarketing executives, but more recently mobile phones are being used for specific campaigns through a technology called ‘bluecasting.’The successful implementation of IDEA Cellular campaigns recently is a testimony to the success of this technology.
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 The bluetooth devices in the mobile phones are mostly used by youngsters to transfer content like songs and videos. The advertisers have now hit this target audience with their marketing campaigns. The recent one being the IDEA cellular campaign, which was done across four malls/multiplexes in Pune. The concept was to promote the ‘IDEA rocks India Sunidhi Chauhan concert.’ IDEA had put up four bluetooth hotspots within different malls and multiplexes in the city with posters asking the customers to switch on their bluetooth devices in the premises to receive free Sunidhi Chauhan memorabilia, thus creating a buzz for the upcoming event.

Similar campaigns were earlier done for Lee, Nokia and Disney. To promote their new catalogue, Lee installed the bluetooth devices in their stores in Mumbai and Bangalore. The first message the audience received was a simple quiz, in which they were offered discount coupons and thus engaged people’s interest in the first push itself.

To publicise their New Year Eve’s party in Mumbai, Nokia created a sports complex where users could download interesting stuff. Similarly, to create a buzz about their coporate party in Delhi and Mumbai, Disney also offered mobile phone users to download content on their handsets.

All these unique campaigns had one thing in common – Pune-based One-2-One Technologies, which provided the bluetooth technology for all these campaigns. These campaigns were highly successful – the acceptance rate for the Lee Jeans campaign was 27% with over 20,000 downloads. “From the acceptability point of view, the campaigns have been very successful,” told Nilesh Kale, director, One-2-One Technologies.

Established in July 2006, One-to-One Technologies is highly focused on the digital media technologies for the advertising and media segment. “It’s a new business and our aim is to be innovative in usage of the technology. The company has been instrumental in introducing bluetooth marketing service in India since October 2006. We have an agreement with Kameleon Technologies for their MobiZone solution whereby One-2-One is the sole authorized representative for selling and supporting the bluetooth product in India and neighbouring countries,” told Nilesh.

So what is bluecasting technology and how does it works? As per Nilesh Kale, “The bluetooth proximity marketing technology works by pushing promotional content to the mobile handsets that have bluetooth switched on. It works by inviting the users with bluetooth-enabled handsets within the bluetooth hotspot zone to download media rich promotional content. The content could be video clips, sound bites, full mp3 tracks, ringtones, games, wallpapers, themes etc.”

 The bluetooth technology provided by One-2-One is very light footed and can be deployed on an “on demand” basis. “Usually when there is a requirement, we ship out the units preloaded with the promotional content to the locations where the activation is taking place. The hardware unit itself is very sleek and can be deployed behind banners, standees etc,” told Nilesh.

“We are in talks with various advertising/OOH companies for a nationwide rollout of our bluetooth technology at key sites that would deliver personalized content to people. We can provide location/region sensitive content across all our sites as we have the capability to individually control the content at each site remotely via GPRS,” explained Nilesh.

On asking about the cost of these devices, Nilesh replied, “The costing depends on the campaign and the volumes involved in the activation. There is also cost associated with the content services required (like testing, mastering, creating content, etc).”

The future of bluecasting technology is bright. As Nilesh puts it, “As we see it, the market for such technologies is expanding. Since our first campaign in October 2006, we have seen a steady rise in the demand for this media. The only item that people carry with them all the time apart from their keys and wallet is the mobile phone. Hence its very important to be able to deliver media rich messages to this device in “opt-in” manner without actually having the negativity associated with pure push marketing (like SMS). This technology allows the brands to reach the consumers’ phones without the consumer having to pay for it or use GPRS, which involves having a GPRS tariff and the GPRS settings on the handset, which can be tricky to use. This technology enhances the whole user experiences for delivering content due to its simplicity.”

Besides, the company is also on the lookout for new technologies and is set to launch a few innovative products for the signage industry. “One of these would be a digital signage solution that would be much more interactive than the current solutions with event management functionality. We are hoping to launch it in a month’s time,” told Nilesh. Here’s wishing goodluck to One-2-One for another success story.

– Varsha Verma