Bluetooth’s coming home
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
If you are an English football /soccer fan then the subject line will be meaningful and poignant – it hasn’t – football that is – it hasn’t come home 🙁 NOT for a long time!
Bill Ray over at the Register (these guys are used to writing about Technology – The Register has a tag line that I just love – “Biting the hand that feeds IT” – The Register is often more controversial than we are you know!) has written “Footy fans to get pushed advertising”…
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.
You know our opinion about Bluetooth / Bluejacking – this idea, concept, business model has no where to go – even if someone good like Matchday Media (MDM.TV) picked up Bluepod or Breeze-Tech (Breeze-Tech were one of the early pioneers of this, have many installs down-under and in the UK and we have recommended them a few times to clients) promoted or installed the systems together with their stadium screen networks, this would not work.
It’s actually scary how much publicity Bluepod has got (err we are adding to it as well) – I see that Brand Republic picked up the story also here
May 26th, 2008 at 12:26 @559
Adrian,
A very interesting view however very wrong.
– The Bluepod media opportunity is growing rapidly and the verticals are increasing.
If you need to understand how we differ from every other bluetooth provider and/or proposition please get in contact because you will understand the difference.
It is frustrating that someone who signs up for ‘digital out of home’ doesn’t get Bluepod media. But then thats why we talk to digital agencies who demonstrate a willing and know-how of this space and hence we have built a successful business through ad revenues!
All the best