SPAR “Mounties” capture new customers from 100 meters away........

Spar wholesaler, Tates Ltd, are launching their new “Tim Hortons”-branded coffee and pastries offering at their flagship Haymarket store supported by a Bluetooth marketing initiative provided by MyOxygen. During the launch week, a mobile Bluetooth transmitter carried by roaming “Mounties”, is sending out discounted vouchers to passers-by who can receive the vouchers on their mobile phones via Bluetooth. The voucher contains details of a coffee and donut the offer and a barcode which will be scanned in store. The system tracks

the number of attempted transmissions, the number of people accepting the promotion and, in store, the number of redemptions, leading to a fully tracked ROI for the marketing solution. Myoxygen Mobile provide one of the smallest Bluetooth transmitters available in the UK, meaning that they can be left in store or carried by staff in the local area. The barcoded vouchers can be received by any Bluetooth-enabled phone within a 100 metre range or via a WAP link.

Explaining the attraction of this channel, Anthony Sap- por, Marketing Manager for Tates stated, “Using Blue- tooth devices allows us to market to potential customers up to 100m away, who may otherwise be unaware of our new services or offers. It provides a very low cost delivery channel that is accurately tracked from transmitter to customer to store and is certainly more cost effective in this case than alternatives, such as posters. We also like the rapid feedback on promotional success, so that promotions that are under performing can easily be identified and improved. Customer feed- back has been encouraging; they don’t feel that it is intrusive and like appropriate messages delivered via a device they use – their mobile phone”.