New Bluetooth solution provides cricket updatesNext time at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy stadium — watching a fast-paced IPL T20 match — you go up to get a cup of coffee, you actually wouldn’t be missing much of the action. Simply because, Bangalore-based start-up TELiBrahma Convergent Communications has deployed a Bluetooth solution, Cricket@ksca, at the stadium. The solution provides information, mobile content and cricket updates to spectators and was first tested during the India-Pakistan cricket match last December. The only catch: your mobile has to be Bluetooth-enabled.
And not merely at the cricket stadium. Stroll around Bangalore’s Forum mall, with your mobile’s blue-tooth feature activated, and you could receive messages flashing discounts, offers and advertisements from the stores in the mall. Even cricket updates at the Chinnaswamy stadium are peppered with deals, coupons and discounts offered from premium brands.
“This mobile transaction platform — a combination of mobile deal search engine and a Bluetooth-based mobile advertising platform — bypasses cellular operators. The solution is usually deployed at high net worth, high footfall locations and the mobile content is sponsored by brands. So, instead of charging the consumer, we get advertisement revenue,” explains Suresh Narasimha, founder and CEO of TELiBrahma.
Called location-based services (LBS), malls across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune are deploying bluetooth-enabled servers to reach out to customers in a more direct and personal way than a loudspeaker and a stage in the public mall area. This is not exactly new in India, but was being used in a very limited manner. Now, TELiBrahma, Dubai-based Outbox-Marketing Redefined and Delhi-based Phoneytunes.com are turning entire malls into hotspots, creating a single access point for tenants to market their diverse offerings to mall goers.
Phoneytunes’ delivery platform is, however, linked to the telecom service provider. “It is a low-cost solution for focussed marketing centred around specific locations and linked to the cell sites on the GSM network. The platform links at the backend to a marketing campaign /scheduled message broadcasting, “ says a senior official. The platform is already live with a few telcos and helps bring in revenue through marketing dollars.
