One Moore cycle

The next 18 months will determine whether Bluetooth mobility can serve as a marketing tool.

There is hardly any mobile user who has not been disturbed by a promotional SMS or irritated by an untimely tele-marketing pitch. But it need not be intrusive.

It can work on "opt-in" logic too. Imagine a scenario where you walk into a shopping mall, and switch on your mobile phone's Bluetooth connection for guidance towards your quarry.

If there's a deal on a Dolce & Gabbana jacket that's just waiting for you, you find yourself being beamed precise directions to locate the shop. But only after you express interest in it.

Call it Bluetooth marketing, or even Bluecasting "" a tech-enabled variant of permission marketing. It is doing good business at leading hotels and high-end shopping arcades commercial zones in the UK, US, Pakistan, Nigeria and now India.

ValueFirst, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), is all set to deploy Bluetooth marketing services for the benefit of Indian marketers after similar pilot projects have proven useful in Bucharest, London and Karachi.

"Permission based advertisements such as business cards, flyers, posters, sound clips, shopping coupons and local information for tourists can be beamed over bluetooth devices such as PDAs, laptops and mobile phones upto 300 metres range," says Vijay Shukla, country head of ValueFirst, a nearly Rs100-crore MVNO.

"At the moment, the number of businesses that really understand Bluetooth, its benefits and how it can be used is rather limited in India," rues a telecom analyst.

As in most mass-market technologies, the timing of applications and price points are the critical issues, and as with so many network applications, there happens to be a chicken-and-egg situation: it works best only if it's well adopted, but it adoption depends on working well.

"Indian marketers haven't completely reached a stage where they are asking for Bluetooth campaigns," says Shukla, "They are still discovering it."

"The fear of a random hacker using the service to exploit mobile users is worrying Indian advertisers," he adds, "but Bluetooth 2.0 (the latest version) is a more secure wireless platform and reduces the possibility of hacking."

Observers say that the next 18 months will be crucial to the future of Bluetooth's prospects in India. Stay tuned.

How does one Bluecast?

Once the Bluetooth connection is turned on, the consumer makes the first connection. Say, a message appears, asking "Want Gucci bag? Pair with Gucci [link] shown on your Bluetooth phone."

"Pairing" is a specific set of steps to link your mobile phone with another Bluetooth device.

Once the connection is established, the user gets to see the promotional video, clip, interactive demo or download data from the established link. However, at any point, if the user forfeits the Bluetooth connection, the data transfer stops.