Intera Blog

Ipsh and Intera begin working together on Bluetooth marketing

We are very excited to begin working with one of the leading mobile marketing agencies. Ipsh offers an array of mobile marketing solutions from advertising and coupons to games and entertainment. 

Ipsh understands Bliuetooth marketing and will help clients get the most from Intera's Bluetooth Proximity Marketing network. Ipsh works with some of the leading brands in the world. 

Below is the official press release. 

IPSH, INTERA ENTER INTO STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Ipsh clients to benefit from Intera’s Bluetooth infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO (Sept. xx, 2008) – Mobile marketing agency Ipsh has entered into a strategic partnership with Intera, a provider of out-of-home advertising and telecommunication services to more than 4,000 businesses.

Intera's Bluetooth Proximity Marketing network enables marketers and advertisers to deliver highly targeted messages to consumers based on their location, without the consumer requiring any special applications or hardware.  Consumers connecting via these Bluetooth networks can download content faster and incur no usage charges, unlike wireless carrier-based offers.

“The partnership with Intera provides our clients the opportunity to utilize a nationwide Bluetooth infrastructure without the investment associated with the cost of building and maintaining that network themselves,” said Ipsh co-founder Mike Jelley. 

“Bluetooth Proximity Marketing provides a way for advertisers to reach consumers directly and get them excited about a product or promotion at a time when they can instantly convert to a purchase,” said Kevin Thornton, CEO of Intera Group. “By partnering with Ipsh, we are not only giving advertisers direct access to key targets at key moments, but we can support that access with measurable and compelling results, bringing online-style measurement and analysis to out-of-home marketing.”

Intera’s Bluetooth Proximity Marketing network will cover over 500 locations in the Top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) in the U.S. by the end of 2008.

“As the U.S. consumer market evolves and becomes more familiar with Bluetooth technology this mobile marketing channel will become very important,” said Ipsh President Bryon Morrison.  “At Ipsh, we’ve used Bluetooth in many of our engagements just as we do SMS, wireless internet, applications, digital signage, database marketing, etc., with consistently great results.  We’ve tested the Bluetooth enough to know what works and what doesn’t.  Intera is building their network right and we feel this partnership will bring our clients substantial results.” 

 

About Ipsh

Based in San Francisco, ipsh! (http://www.ipsh.com) is a full-service, global mobile marketing agency.  With nearly 1,000 campaigns since the company's inception in June 2001, Ipsh provides strategy, creative, execution and analytics across an array of mobile technologies. 

Ipsh is part of The Marketing Arm (http://www.themarketingarm.com), a promotions and event agency which operates within Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC).

 

About Intera

Intera (http://www.interainc.com) provides media and out-of-home advertising and telecommunication services to over 4,000 businesses, including big box retailers, shopping mall owners and operators, cinema chains, gas stations and convenience stores, and transportation companies.

Intera's Bluetooth Proximity Marketing network will cover over 2,000 locations in the Top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMA's) in the U.S. by the end of 2009. Intera's working with brands and their agencies to extend their marketing to mobile consumers in a highly effective and measurable manner.

In business for over 20 years, privately held Intera is headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif.  

Hard Rock Proximity Marketing Campaign

Intera and Hard Rock Cafe San Francisco just published the results of a recent proximity marketing campaign. The results of the campaign have been very positive and you can see the details covered in The Washington Post and Mobile Marketing.

However a few people such Venture Beat and Mobile Burn have raised the issue of opt-in and privacy concerns. We have worked hard to address this issue but we know we can always improve. This is how the opt-in works today:

1. messages can only be received by users who have their phones set to discoverable. This means most people will not receive the messages by default. Signage is used to explain to users that they can receive offers if their phones are turned to discoverable mode.

2. Users who have their phones set to discoverage will receive a message asking if they would like to receive an offer from The Hard Rock Cafe. If they say NO, we will not attempt to send them a message again. This can be set up differently for each campaign - currently we would not send another message to this phone for the duration of the campaign. But it would be just as easy to simply NEVER send this person content again.

We are constantly looking at ways to improve the service as we understand that any negative response from people receiving the messages would only lead to frustration and quickly render this approach useless to marketers. To date, we have not received negative feedback and the response rate suggests that many people find the offers useful.

As one article suggested, people might not know where to complain, so we are working on ways to make it easier for users to contact Intera or our clients in the event they are unhappy with the service or if they would like to talk with us, about how we can make it better.

Traditional Outdoor for Mobile Content Discovery

Traditional outdoor advertising is known to be effective. Exactly how effective?

Intera has been working to understand the specific impact of signage, particularly on mobile content discovery. Over the last few months Intera had the opportunity to run a series of test campaigns.

During the first weeks of the campaign, signage was used. The result was a reference response rate - i.e. the number of bluetooth capable devices detected compared to the number of successful downloads.

During subsequent weeks, signage was removed. And a new response rate was obtained. The improvement with signage was between 2x and 3x in the response rate. With better creative and larger signage, we expect the difference would have been even more pronounced.

However, it is still interesting to note that even in cases where signage is not available, Proximity Marketing campaigns can still result in mobile content discovery.

Proximity Marketing - our newest offering

Intera's newest service offering is progressing well. We have been fortunate to work with great brands and location owners in our initial deployments in San Francisco.

And we we continue to receive very excited responses as our customers understand the benefits of this new technology.

Above: customers downloaded sponsored content at a location in San Francisco.

Below: an overview of a recently deployed network (image from Meraki and Google Earth)

 

Online Outdoor Advertising Site Selector - Beta

Our new tool enables advertisers to easily purchase Outdoor Media.

1. Select the City or Zip code in which you would like to advertise
2. Choose the dates for your campaign
3. View available sites
4. Select and receive immediate price estimates

Take a look and let us know what you think.