Bluecasting: A Hit For Coldplay Fans

Mobile marketing, applications and content agency Filter UK’s outdoor BlueCasting™ campaign to promote Coldplay’s X&Y album has proved a huge hit with London’s commuters.

13,000 fans flocked to download free pre-release video clips, never-before seen interviews, audio samples and exclusive images onto their mobile, via Bluetooth technology from giant Transvision screens at mainline train stations.

Over 87,000 unique handsets were “discovered” and 13,000 people then opted-in to receive the material, delivering a massive response rate, close to 15%. The busiest day was Saturday June 4th - two days before the official album launch date - when over 8,000 handsets were discovered and over 1,100 users opted in to receive a video file. The BlueCast systems are smart enough to deliver time-sensitive content, so, for example, in the morning the user would get an audio clip of the tracks "Fix You" and prompted to tune in to Radio One but in the afternoon the clip would be the same but the user would be prompted to watch Jonathan Ross on BBC1.Alasdair Scott, chief creative officer at Filter, which developed BlueCasting, said: “Having Coldplay content was a dream to show how BlueCasting can work. This is the biggest BlueTooth-based marketing exercise so far, both in terms of unique devices discovered and consumers who opted-in for communications. But what BlueCasting can deliver is at the very early stages, but within the coming months the BlueCasting service will be able to deliver free, personalised broadband-quality content to user's mobile phones, PDAs and portable computers. Since the BlueCasting system is proximity-based we can be sure of delivering timely and appropriate content to an ever growing range of Bluetooth-enabled devices".

Claire O’Brien, senior marketing manager at Parlophone Records, said: “BlueCasting really appealed to me as part of the launch of X&Y. It's the perfect medium to push different types of (Coldplay) teaser content to a potentially receptive yet broad audience, who could then click through to the WAP site for purchase. The ease of use and ability to change copy/content daily ensured that messages were timely and exciting for consumers to receive. The response rate was higher than we'd expected purchases from the WAP site increased throughout the time the BlueCasting was running and the data gathered is being used in the ongoing X&Y album campaign.”