Friday, September 05, 2008
Bluetooth, SPAM or NOT?
It has been launched for public comments, the MMA Proximity Marketing Guidelines. These guidelines are the result of the committee which we are members. Thank to its local idiosyncrasies, most of the mobile marketing companies will proximity marketing.
Actually when in the mobile industry, discuss the proximity marketing, automatically comes to mind the word 'Bluetooth'. Although there are more technological options go beyond RFID or LBS from ops.
The committee sought to give a series of recommendations and educational lines based on what is done today to make this idea a powerful tool to promote companies and products. And I think that, largely, going in the right direction. But when I read the hot topic, opt-in, I thought it was going to cause problems. Mainly because when Bluetooth was designed, mobile marketing wasn’t in mind.
Quote: "Bluetooth On visible or discovered the Bluetooth functionality is on, and the phone is visible to other Bluetooth devices. In this mode proximity marketing systems can contact the user. "
It’s totally ‘correct’, if the user has enabled Bluetooth and is visible 'can' be connected. But ‘should’ we?, Could be a green light for SPAM as indicates an article in The Register? Does the consumer have the knowledge to manage their bluetooth and not receive unwanted publicity?
The issue is actually complex, what would be the best way to opt-in a bluetooth marketing campaign?
Labels: mobile advertising
sais...I think there are two simple ways to avoid spam feelings. First, when you want to use 'Push', turn down the hotspot's transmission radius to 1 or 2 meters. Second, instead of Push use 'Pull'. Pull means, any prompt on the phone's display will _not_ appear automatically - the user first sends a note, or a vcard to the hotspot, and then receives the content. Doing it this way, the user's consent is clearly apparent.
Juan Antonio Muñoz-Gallego sais...Sounds good Laurenz. The main concern I felt in the committees meetings is about the results applying that, but I agree is an option.
Paulo Carvalhal sais...I believe that we must be reasonable.
If I have my bluetooth system ON, if it is in discoverable mode, and if I have to say "YES" to a incoming message, why should it be spam?
I'vo got 3 levels of decision that I passed.
I think it is useless to say that after these 3 steps, the user is unaware of what he/she is doing!
This concern can be relevant with a massive exploration of bluetooth marketing, that will probably lead to abuse and lack of good practices. I think that is not the case (yet).
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