CBS Testing Bluetooth Technology in Grand Central Station
CBS will be promotinig their Fall lineup in Grand Central Station utilizing Bluetooth technology. There will be billboards in the station with Bluetooth technology beaming video clips to cell phones, smart phones and PDAs. The owners of these Bluetooth devices will have the option to accept the video and view the 30 second video clip. There will be a total of 5 billboards of different shows that they will be promoting this Labor Day weekend through September.
CBS will promote the network’s four new primetime series – “Shark,” “Smith,” “Jericho” and “The Class” — as well as the continuing primetime drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” Bluetooth device owners will receive a message from the billboard on their phone’s screen that asks, “Would you like to know more from CBS?” Pressing the corresponding “Accept” button will begin the download of the video clip from the billboard to the phone, where it can be viewed and then deleted or saved. The download should take about 20 seconds. But the cellphone must be within a radius of 30 to 35 feet away from the billboard and must be set to “discoverable to all” mode, explains Patrick Nagle, chief marketing officer of Kameleon Technologies, the Paris-based company whose MobiZone FREE technology is powering the CBS billboards.
CBS will gauge the success of the campaign partly by counting the number of video clips that are downloaded from the Bluetooth billboards. But this won’t be the only yardstick, Schweitzer said. The network will also have “spotters’ at Grand Central to see how many people simply stop and look at the billboards at different times of day. “If it doesn’t work, it’s an experiment. If it works, then it will become a regular thing,” he said.
CBS is banking on commuters waiting for their trains viewing the clips because they have nothing better to do. It is an interesing approach to interactive marketing, with similarities to futuristic visions in movies such as “Minority Report”. Although in “Minority Report” the advertisements were holographic billboards that came to life for each person individually. This is definately the first step in the evolution of turning billboards into something that reaches out to the people that just pass them by everyday. It will be interesting to see how successful the campaign is and how other companies can also use creative ways of converging old advertising methods with new technologies, expecially as new technologies are developed.