Deja vu â all over again!

This article on iBeacons – from the Washington Post – has recently been circulating internally and seems to have caught the attention of very senior managers across the business.

And yet… having explored, created, run and aborted, a number of Bluetooth consumer marketing campaigns over the last 15 years or so, I can’t help but feel there is nothing new in this apart from some magic branding dust from Apple.

How long before Toothing rears its head again in some badly researched newspaper article?!!

The key sentence for me occurs early on in the article:

“…If a customer downloads the store’s app and chooses to share his or her location…” (bold is my emphasis)

We know how difficult it can be to get customers to download (and keep!) a branded app. And this is only getting harder.

And trying to explain to people how to switch on Bluetooth on their phone is harder than getting them to download (and understand how to use) an app that can read QR codes!!

I already have Bluetooth on my current phone – it even connects to my car stereo and allows me to make/ receive calls without any clunky handsfree kit. That is when I remember/ can be bothered. Which isn’t often. And this is a function (from the phone and car!) I like and find useful.

We also know that for all the PR, iPhones are not the dominant device in any marketplace around the world. Bluetooth marketing has struggled when any customer needed to switch on the Bluetooth functionality of their phone. How hard is it going to be to explain that only a certain minority of customers (“..not those with your phone, I’m afraid sir”) can have your special offer??

I can see how Bluetooth will help bring about “the internet of things” – as it was always designed to do, really (before being hi-jacked by fast-talking, shiny jacketed, snake-oil peddling types claiming to be marketers).

Let’s ignore the hype, and see how tech can be used to deliver solutions to existing problems. It will be the small little functional improvements that revolutionise our world – piece by piece.