Link: HSBC ditches scheme for mobile ads via Bluetooth – ZDNet UK
HSBC has dropped plans to send advertising messages using Bluetooth technology to the mobile phones of people passing the bank’s branches.
The bank ran a trial of the technology earlier this year at its Regent Street and Canary Wharf branches in London. The system works by using a small box inside the branch that scans mobile phones to detect those with Bluetooth enabled.
I hate Bluetooth spam. There’s one at Waterloo train station that was constantly bugging me the other day. Every few minutes it’d try and send me a message, even though I’d said no previously.
HSBC are a little quiet on the full reason for dropping the plans – a spokesman said: “We did look at the results and it is not being taken forward. It didn’t prove commercially viable.”
And that could mean anything.. but I would assume some of it was down to people walking in the branch complaining!
I was in the Cineworld in Glasgow city centre the other day and my phone said “do you want to receive a bluetooth message from cineworld”. Curious I clicked yes,but never actually got my message. I was so disappointed, I’ve never got a bluetooth spam before and my first one just didn’t work. ;(
We’re talking about the use of Bluetooth as an advertising medium, could it be the HSBC messages were considered spam?
http://www.mediasandbox.co.uk/2008/04/21/is-it-bluetooth-marketing-spamming/
DanC – Thought Den
Thanks for the post.