Bluetooth in Marketing

Imagine yourself walking across a crowded area in Bengaluru and spotting a Honda Jazz car saying 'To know more about Jazz, turn on your Bluetooth'. Recently, Dakshin Honda, Honda's major dealer in Bengaluru, provided this experience by putting a BluFi device in a Honda Jazz and taking it across the city. Once the Bluetooth device in a mobile phone is activated, one can download Honda Jazz related rich media content such as videos, wallpapers and most importantly, the details of the dealer. The car will roam inside the city, mostly near residential areas, high footfall locations, corporate locations, colleges, parking spaces of malls and major shopping areas. The campaign, conceptualised and executed by TeliBrahma, a Bengaluru based mobile solutions company, started in July and will run for two more weeks. The target group for the car is allegedly not demography based but mindset based. It is targeted at consumers who have a youthful approach to life. The BluFi network is being successfully used by leading brands around the world to deliver targeted, measurable and engaging communication to the target customer base. BluFi helps convert locations into BluFi zones (Bluetooth zones), which are robust mobile media networks that deliver rich mobile content, context based advertisements and location based services directly to the user's mobile. TeliBrahma's BluFi network is present across Barista, McDonald's and Shopper's Stop outlets, shopping malls and stadiums across the country. Suresh Narasimha, chief executive officer, TeliBrahma, tells afaqs!, "The content can be tailored according to the targeted market. For instance, in rural areas, religious content including 'aarti' ring tones and wallpapers of local deities are a big hit. Similarly, in the Honda Jazz campaign, the target group lives in a metro and therefore the content matches their tastes." Sources from Honda confirm that Bengaluru is one of the most important markets for all Honda cars, including Honda Jazz, and is the third largest market in India after the NCR and Mumbai. TeliBrahma claims to have received more than 12,000 downloads so far. The client will be charged a monthly rental for the BluFi device placed inside the car. Dakshin Honda claims to have the largest dealership for Honda cars in South India. This dealership is a result of the collaboration between Honda Siel Cars India Limited (HSCI) and the PCH Group. HSCI's sales and distribution network spread across the country includes 106 facilities in 63 cities. HSCI dealerships are based on the "3S Facility" (Sales, Service, Spares) format, offering the complete range of services to its customers. Tata Indicom urges people to try M learning With mobile phones moving beyond being basic telephony devices, value added services (VAS) provided by telecom operators have gained importance. And telecom operators are doing all they can to promote their VAS offerings and get consumers interested. The latest one to do this is Tata Indicom. To educate and inform non-English speakers about Tata Indicom's M-learning (mobile learning) feature, the telecom brand has launched an activation in 24 cities. The company has roped in Hungama Promo Marketing, a Hungama Digital Media division, for executing the concept.

Trivikram Thakore, head, brand marketing and communications, Tata Teleservices Limited, says, "In the declining ARPU (average revenue per user) market, VAS will be the key revenue driver. The next big wave in VAS will be to move from the typical "how-can-I-jazz-up-my-mobile" kind of VAS, to "how-will-it-make-a-difference-to-my-life" kind of utility-based VAS. Keeping this in mind, the M-learning or 'English Seekho' programme was launched."

The activity was launched to bring alive the English learning proposition in Sec C and D markets, such as Delhi, NOIDA, Meerut, Muzzafarnagar, Bareli, Muradabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jhansi, Varanasi, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Jharkhand, Ranchi, Aligarh, Mathura, Agra, Alwar, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bikaner, Kota and Ajmer -- markets where consumers are not well-versed with the language. "The product is aimed at teaching spoken English through a simple Interactive Voice Call. It is targeted at the migrant, urban, blue-collared worker, who cannot converse in English and who feels that learning to speak in English will add value to his life -- either in terms of opportunity advancement or in terms of social acceptance. We briefed Hungama on this need, and also to ensure that these consumers use this service on a continuous basis," says Thakore. The campaign is being executed in the form of a road show, where the canter has been transformed into a classroom. The promoters go around distributing leaflets and informing the TG to participate in the campaign. However, to gain entry to the canter-cum-classroom, people have to answer simple questions, such as 'Mombatti ko English mein kya kehte hain?' or 'Kale rang ko English mein kya kehte hain?' However, Tata Indicom consumers have the privilege of entering the canter without answering such questions. Inside the canter, the teacher starts a demonstration of Tata Indicom's M-learning package, after which an audio file is played, for the participants to listen to and play along. After this, the participants go through a mock test based on M-learning, for instance, 'How does one greet in the morning in English?' "After identifying the markets and the TG, the insides of the mobile vans were designed to look just like an authentic classroom that would give the TG an almost "back to school" feeling. There was also an adaptation of Teacher Maria, who interacted on similar lines as the actual IVR," chuckles Thakore.