Subway Movie Poster Offers Ringtone Via Bluetooth
While riding the subway to work in Toronto, Jonathan Hung noticed a poster promoting the Lord of the Rings musical (who knew?) at the Prince of Wales theater. What caught Hung's attention was the poster's encouragement to fire up the bluetooth or infra-red on his phone, point it at the poster and get a free ring Lord of the Rings-themed ring tone. While Hung says the musical isn't supposed to be very goo but the ad is a lot better than all the "take one to learn how to speak any language" ads that seem to be everywhere.
Comments
Hello.
Has anyone had success with these type of bluetooth push posters? We looked into incorporating Bluetooth, RFID and other technologies into our AapRails esclator advertising product but slow download times, limited bluetooth phone usage, and worst of all blue tooth connectivity was limited to one user at a time. I think the prospects are great, but SMS based technology is better. With an SMS advert you can get optin signage, plus wider appeal and potential.
Any ideas, reactions?
Robert, sorry to be no help. Just checked your site and I have to admit I had not considered that environment. There really is no place we can't put an ad. Hope your business takes off.
I have a question too: will we soon have the ability to put a barcode into an ad that serves as a link to a website when you take a picture of the ad with your cell phone? I think I saw on AdRants that this is already up and running in Japan.
Hi Pat:
Japan is sometimes a great testing environment because of stronger adhesion to standards. The cell phone market is controlled by DoCoMo which allows mobile marketers to create feature rich apps, and solutions that work. With Aap!Rails and other similar outdoor media, advertisers have used Datamatric Barcodes (sort of like jumptags in SMS) that take the user to a mobile WAP site with more info. This is an easy add to on feature for our sites, and makes a powerful viral link for adverts. For Western markets - SMS short codes can accomplish the same goal. Sadly while bluetooth holds potential for interconnectivity between phones, its use in posters and other technology is limited at the time being. Either way the message is clear, advertising is becoming increasingly more interactive. The technology platform that allows to us to share information - and communicate with users is not important, the end result is.