About 150 movers and shakers from the German world of mobile gathered in Frankfurt this week to learn, exchange ideas, network furiously and celebrate our first year of German Mobile Mondays. It’s been a great year too, with 4 City Chapters now thriving and our sponsorship model being widely admired within the MoMo community.
We had a packed programme, despite some people pulling out at last minute (which is very annoying by the way – you know who you are). But we were still able to provide a great line-up of interesting and compelling speakers.
One of them was by Laurenz Lenkewitz of Bluetooth Marketing company, Hiwave.
Regular readers of MobHappy will know that both Carlo and I have been very critical of some of the practices and practitioners in this channel, so I resigned myself to another lecture about why it was a really good idea to spam people using Bluetooth.
But I was very pleasantly surprised that Laurenz was prepared to take a very critical and open view of the channel and discuss its pros and cons, in the best discussion I’ve seen on the subject.
The controversy surrounding Bluetooth is actually about whether it should be used in a Pull or Push context.
Pull is where the user interacts in some way with a stimulus in the immediate environment. So, they might see a poster inviting them to download a short video clip, application or a ringtone. As far as I’m concerned, this is a great use of the technology and not controversial in any way. The user has made the decision to interact and the delivery of the message or content, takes advantage of a quick, easy-to-use (once you know how, anyway) and free channel.
A further advantage of the Pull method is that the user can choose from a menu of possible content – a ringtone or a video clip, as an example.
The disadvantage of Pull is that the marketer will inevitably get far fewer interactions. Users might not see the invitation, might not know how to use Bluetooth in this way, or even not know what it is or if their phone has it (though 80% of phones phones sold in the last 18 months in EMEA are Bluetooth equipped according to Hiwave).
On the other hand, particularly for younger audiences, use and knowledge of Bluetooth is very high, although that’s an anecdotal statistic – because Bluetooth doesn’t use an operator network, no one really knows how much it’s really used in the wild. However, MobHappy has been writing for some time about how millions of photos, ringtones and other forms of user-generated and professionally produced content are shared these days.
However, Bluetooth via a Push delivery is an entirely different matter. This is where the marketer broadcasts via Bluetooth a message to all the mobiles within range of the transmitter, who have their phone in “discoverable” or “visible” mode. Note that there are three modes for most mobiles: On, off and visible. You can have your phone on (eg paired with a headset), but still be invisible and therefore you wouldn’t get these messages.
The message is itself the invitation to interact and that’s where the problem lies – it’s spam. A parallel might be if I’m an email spammer and I send you an email very politely asking you if I might be allowed to send you information about purchasing Viagra. Even if I don’t send you the information unless you subsequently ask for it, the first message is unsolicited and thus spam.
Or is it? There are two definitions of spam in my view. Wikipedia says “Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages”. Under this one it’s pretty clear that Bluetooth Push is spam.
Incidentally, some vendors in this space try to argue, rather disingenuously, that having a phone in Visible mode means that you’ve given permission to be contacted like that. My view is that this is like saying that if you have an email application on your computer, you want to be spammed. Hiwave don’t argue this, incidentally.
But another definition of Spam could be “Spam is in the eye of the beholder”. This works two ways. Firstly, I can opt-in to receive marketing messages, but still resent getting them. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to opt-out again, maybe I’m not in the mood, maybe I’ve forgotten that I did opt in – any number of reasons could mean that I’m irritated and regard it as Spam.
On the other hand, for some people (and an awful lot of young people fall into this category) being asked if they fancy a new free ringtone, video or other digital goodie is good fun and welcome.
The trouble is that the marketer has no idea if the potential recipient is going to love the idea of the message, or hate it.
Further complications also exist. Some markets and cultures would be very open to Push communication, with others seeing it as simple spam.
Another complicating scenario would be that if you were going to a music gig and you got a message from the band in the venue that you could get a video-greeting from them on your phone. It’s hard to imagine that everyone there wouldn’t be delighted, even though prior permission might not exist.
There is a possible solution to all this (and not one discussed by Hiwave) and that’s to get people to install on their mobile a little application, which essentially says “Hey, I’m interested in any marketing messages or free goodies you’d like to send me”. That way there’s no controversy, but there are huge practical problems in getting people to install the application in the first place. That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be done. For example, if there were Bluetooth “booths” kids could visit and top up with sponsored content and digital vouchers, I’m sure plenty of happy users could be found, though scalability would be an issue.
Hiwave currently operates both methods and openly advises its clients of the pros and cons of each approach. Furthermore, they are very keen to encourage debate and reach some kind of consensus for Best Practice for this emerging industry. I find this a very refreshing attitude, as well as the right way to proceed. If Bluetooth marketing is ever to achieve acceptance within the marketing community, this debate must happen, consensus reached, guidelines established and the major players agree to abide by the rules.
The Mobile Marketing Association is currently going through that process and I hope that Hiwave will participate, as the debate needs experts who are prepared to approach the subject with an open mind, rather than hide behind some of the silly arguments put forward by their competitors.
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