Bluetooth's coming home
Footy fans to get pushed advertising
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Footy fans at a number of clubs will soon be able to enjoy adverts downloaded direct to their mobile phones over a Bluetooth connection, courtesy of promotional company Bluepod.
Fans at Blackburn Rovers, Birmingham City, West Ham, Portsmouth, Wigan Athletic, Wolves, and Celtic will be able to opt in to receive transmissions, which will come in the form of video and audio as well as text messages, and include information about club fixtures and club profiles along with advertising.
Bluepod reckons that fans hanging around on the terraces are an ideal target for entertaining advertisements, and cite a recent trial at Portsmouth that saw over 6,000 fans downloading a movie trailer from a crowd of about 20,000.
Given that advertisers will, apparently, pay between 40 and 70 pence per download, that's not a bad day's work for Bluepod.
The content comes from tiny servers, called Bluepods, which just connect to the mains and get their updates wirelessly. Bluepods have already been installed in Vue, Cineworld and Showcase cinemas, and were used with great success to promote LG's Viewty phone.
To receive the content punters obviously need a Bluetooth phone which also needs to be visible, so installations are accompanied by enormous posters suggesting people get that set up to opt into the service. ®
COMMENTS
Reasonably cool but ultimately pointless.
Natwest and MS were around a few days ago giving away copies of Office 2007, Vista and Webcams. To "win" you only had to turn your phone's bluetooth on and they would send you a code to claim your prize with.
I thought the devices were quite cool (battery powered and about the same size as an 8-port switch), but once I won a copy of Vista (of no use to me) and traded it in for a MS Webcam (of little use to me, especially as the £10 one I got from Tesco's was better) I turned bluetooth off and walked away.
And the range was about 10m - covering a stadium filled with moving people is going to be fun!
as a luddite
It takes me a week to notice i have a text from the wife and i use my phone every day :)
The offers would have expired by the time i notice them
OO small though .. i need a phone with bluetooth
It's just like any other push-in-your-face advertising
Well, if I'm out and about and some stupid twunt from the bottom of the marketing foodchain tries to push halfbrained advertising in my direction, I offer to read it and act on it as I see fit for a fee of £50 per item. That usually puts the idiot off and, assuming they have enough cranial capability to spare for memory, they might just remember to avoid me in the future.
Quite honestly, I don't see any difference between some twit trying to stop me in the street and tell me about double glazing, and the same undesirable trying to send it to my bluetooth.
Yes, I could always set by phone to non-discoverable but, there again, I don't go out wearing ear defenders and a blindfold just so I can't be assailed by marketing muppets.
On that basis, here's the pitch to anyone trying to bluejack me without an invitation, in order to send me marketing malwords.
I'll go around, without a blindfold, ear defenders and with my bluetooth set to discoverable, if I so choose. If you want to send me unsolicited marketing material, I'll be pleased to receive it, review it and act on it as I, in my sole opinion, see fit, for a fee of £50 per item received. Any attempt at sending me such material will be taken as your unconditional and irrevocable acceptance of my offer.
If you don't like my terms, just don't bother sending me anything. It's as simple as that.
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