I was standing outside The Marylebone Tup this afternoon. It’s a rather swish pub on the corner of upscale Marylebone High Street. I was waiting for an Estate Agent to arrive to show me a place nearby so, after 30 seconds of waiting, I did the thing any sane individual in the UK does: Got out my mobile.
As I did, I noticed a Bluetooth enquiry message: “Receive a message from the Marylebone Tup?” it asked.
“Sure!” I thought, “Let’s try it!”
The message proceeded to download.
It opened up and I found it was a nifty GIF animation, wholly relevant, wholly targeted — both to the type of location and geographic location.
Here’s what popped up:
Ah hah! Texperts! Genius marketing!
Very smart indeed….
Marylebone high street… !
You must have done well in the US mate !
Where’s the offer of a 2 for 1 pint?
Now *that* would be relevant. Unless Marylebone High Street has become a hole fishing mecca? Or are you in the market for a hole fishing shack someplace? Or about to base jump off the pub?
….and I thought pub darts/lawn bowls were the most dangerous sports, based on % of participant deaths?
…I need a pint.
/thirstym
Mark, this place I was looking at was cheaper than my old place in Euston; the property market in London is nailed, particularly if you can find vendors desperate to negotiate.
Mike, texperts and AQA get a huge, huge amount of their traffic originating from pubs — I reckon the conversion from this bluetooth ad will be pretty high. I’ll ask them.
so Texperts are paying for the Bluetooth placement?
Does every pub customer or pedestrian get that message? Ok, they found a happy recipient in you. What if it was a P4U spam offer? :-/
Hmmmm….smells like text spam.
/m
I love bluetooth advertising…that is the best i have seen though
Giles’s last blog post..Advertising for PR
…”meet Ewan here cos yer can never find him otherbloodywise” suggested to Texperts but they declined it as all pubs within M25 requesting it. Leads to chaos and potential Ewan lookalike industry omg! Substantial royalties there Ewan so I don’t know…maybe its got legs. I’ve got the IPR’s on this. lol
:))
[…] Text News’Â Ewan MacLeod has blogged about our recent activities with the Marylebone Tup in swinging London. In a low-key trial campaign, we placed some cool little […]
frankly texperts et al get on my wick. If I wanted to be bombarded by advertising I would post my email address on the internet.
I also question the legality of it- if I were to send a message to someone via their unsecured wifi connection I would be committing a crime- whey should bluetooth be any different?
fair point Daryl!