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How many Brits have bluetooth turned on for marketing?

A question from reader, Hardeep, on the subject of bluetooth marketing:

I was wondering if you have any idea of how many brits have bluetooth enabled phones with bluetooth actually turned on?? with regards to the effectiveness of bluetooth for marketing. Me myself only switch it on when I’m going send or receive something, and then turn it off again, I wonder is this is what most people do?

Any thoughts on this? I’m going to see if the chaps at Bluepod have a perspective.

14 COMMENTS

  1. I’m not a Brit, but I’ll chime in. The first thing I do, actually, with any new phone is turn Bluetooth ON, but in hidden mode. I can’t be bothered to turn it on and off, and use it constantly throughout the day to connect with various headsets/phones and also to automatically sync with my computer whenever I walk into the apartment.

    I think that’s a big distinction to make, whether people leave it powered off or merely in ‘hidden’ mode

    Ricky’s last blog post..Look what has arrived…

  2. Go and sit in a rush hour train or tube. You can bet that close to 100% of people have a phone with Bluetooth.

    Do a scan on your phone for BT devices – see how many you pick up.

    Based on my experiments, it’s only around 10 – 15% are set to discoverable.

    Of course, if you know what you’re doing, you can find phones even if they’re hidden.

  3. I am a brit and will comment i leave my own unless i am very bored and want to sen rubbish to people! (generally in lectures). Firstly BT kills your battery and i don’t want annoying childeren on the bus and train sending me rubbish!

  4. The 1st thing I do when I get a new phone is name it. But then my Phone name can change at anytime depending on my moods! Bluetoth always stays OFF. The only time it’s on is for sending and recieving files (which I do quite often so it’s in my ShortCut menu.)
    My reasons for it being off is due to drainging battery power, which is drained enough through 3G. But mainly it’s high radiation it gives out. And I’ll add devices when needed. But it would be more convieniant to just leave it on!

  5. I’ll second that, Bluetooth does totally rag your battery. To be fair, i also don’t like the idea of having to keep deleting bluetooth received messages as you’re effectively storing it twice. Also, the PC sync on Nseries is pants anyway, but with BlueTooth its worse. AND you need a pretty sophisticated explorer to actually send application installers, system files etc.
    Thumbs down, use e-mail to send your files 🙂

  6. Most people that use Bluetooth surely have a connection in place most of the time – You know, for handsfree, music, GPS that kinda thing. Or, like Hardeep, they just use it to send/receive stuff and turn it off again. Using Bluetooth to reach an audience seems like nothing more than a gimmick and doomed to failure in the long run.

    Or are there phones that can have multiple BT connections at once?

    Ant UK’s last blog post..The fun things you find when you’re not looking… Part 2

  7. According to the Telephia European study undertaken in 2007, around 22% of we Brits keep our Bluetooth on permanently. From our own research at Bluepod Media, we have discovered that this is potentially higher, particularly amongst younger age groups with 59% of 16-20 males keeping it on. Regards receiving content you don’t want to receive. Bluetooth is opt-in with an invite / alert asking if you wish to receive the item. If you don’t want it, say no thanks or keep your bluetooth on ‘non-discoverable’ so that you’re not sent an invite in the first place. Finally, regards it draining your battery, it depends on the age of your handset. If it’s less than 3 years old this is no longer the case. We Brits tend to replace our handsets every year due to the nature of the contracts we hold with the network operators.

  8. If entirely depends on the sector you are aiming at, at a live festival where people are aware that they are tracks or wallpapers to get 30 -50%, at a live gig with promoting the fact that you needs to turn you Bluetooth on even higher.

    But blind (so not informing the potential customer) in the UK 10 – 15%. Having said this the value of a desired piece of content to a blind splat is huge, as with any marketing tool where on action is required it is about quality not quality, If you want reach stay on TV or use the web on a high footfall site. Bluetooth if used as junk mail or spam will kill it at a marketing tool, if we get to the point of 10 BT hits a day on your phone, consumers will switch off.

    So I guess it is about making sure your target audience has there device on or is aware of the broadcast.

  9. John, has the power consumption of Bluetooth sending/receiving changed? Because phone-wise, battery consumption has gotten worse, not better. I have an N73 with a 1200mha battery and it still does rag the battery – noticeably more so than leaving it off. Considerin modern phones haven’t adjusted battery-wise to heavy use, keeping Bluetooth on isn’t worth the hassle 🙁

  10. And why are we even talking about Bluepod – May I throw in that it is still spamming. In Denmark we have a technology provider, who actually understands that it is all about the user experience and a system that never sends the same message to the user even if you walked passed the same location every day. So forget the discussion about battery consumption, lets discussed the spamming issue.

  11. Yes Henrik, our system is configured to only contact opted-in recipients once with each item of content offered. That is the whole premis of our proposition in that we have a frequency capped model which here in the UK is audited by ABC Electronic who also monitor all web-site traffic. Our initial alert allows the recipient to download a menu which is presented as the hosts own (e.g. “receive content from Vue cinema?”) then we deliver a JAVA applet menu offering the consumer the option to pair with our device and choose what they would like to receive. As member of the MMA (Mobile MArketing Association) we are duty bound to ensure that the whole process is permission based and as far from Spam as is feasibly possible. In being destination focussed we then ensure that content is tailored to suit the audience e.g. football = managers notes and future fixtures, music = tour dates and links to MI sites etc. As regards battery life, please view the Bluetooth SIG web-site and search for ‘Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.0 + EDR’ which was launched 3 years ago. I hope this helps.

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