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GM?s Chevrolet breaks Bluetooth marketing campaign in mall

A Bluetooth-based campaign to promote the Chevrolet Spark LPG in a shopping mall activity achieved close to 11,000 downloads in two days.

When Kropex, the dealer for General Motors in Bangalore, India, decided to try out Bluetooth-based marketing for the LPG variant of the Chevrolet Spark, the company partnered with TeliBrahma Convergent Communications, a leading India-based mobile marketing company. The Chevy Spark brand was one of the early adopters of TeliBrahma's Prodcaster, which communicates product information and delivers content to consumers directly via Bluetooth.

"The strategy is to make Chevy talk to customers and provide them an opportunity to potential customers to get closer to the Chevy," said Suresh Narasimha, CEO of TeliBrahma Convergent Communications, Bangalore, India. "Chevrolet Spark, which costs just around $5,800 and has proven that it's a great value for money car for both families and the young working crowd.

"We targeted men between 25-32 since they form a great base for compact car segment in India," he said. "The event happened at the Forum Mall in Bangalore, which is a famous hangout for that typical crowd."

Chevrolet is the flagship brand of beleaguered automaker giant General Motors.

The Chevrolet Spark LPG is a version for the Indian market with a Sequential Injection-type liquefied petroleum gas kit. The car was unveiled on World Environment Day in New Delhi.

The brand was launched after GM acquired Korean automaker Daewoo. Available models include 1.0L PS and 1.0L LS.

TeliBrahma offers BluFi to help marketers engage with consumers via mobile within the company's 1,000-plus BluFi zones in locations such as McDonald's, Barista Coffee, Café Coffee Day, indoor shopping malls and commercial street malls.

In addition to Kropex and GM/Chevy, TeliBrahma's clients include Coca-Cola, Nike, Ireland Tourism, UB Group, ICICI, Research In Motion/BlackBerry, GroupM, HSBC, Lenovo, Nokia, Virgin Mobile and Starcom.

TeliBrahma sees Bluetooth as a way to enhance traditional marketing campaigns. The company advocates display and mall activation to achieve higher level of consumer engagement.

During the Chevrolet campaign, which ran over a single weekend, existing BluFi infrastructure in the well-known Forum mall in Bangalore mall was converted in to a "Chevy Zone."

Kropex exhibited Chevy Spark LPG cars in the mall that were enabled with Bluetooth transmitters.
The Forum was already a BluFi zone, that is, a Bluetooth-enabled mall.

Kropex and TeliBrahma used posters, banners all around the mall and stickers on the car to educate consumers about the activity.

Customers needed to switch on their mobile Bluetooth and accept messages from " to participate in the campaign.

Consumers in the mall could download wallpapers, car details, specifications in animated format and details about Kropex dealerships selling General Motors vehicles.

Consumers in other parts of the mall who had activated the Bluetooth feature on their handset received a message about the car prompting them to check it out in the exhibition area.

This was the first campaign of its kind, and consumers started to spread the word virally among their peer groups, according to TeliBrahma.

There were around 10,500 downloads for the content compared with the average 1,000-2,000 downloads in the same location on a normal weekend without Bluetooth functionality.

Despite the negative media publicity for General Motors in recent times, many consumers showed interest towards the promotion and have enquired for more details about Chevy Spark from the representatives in the "Chevy Stall," according to TeliBrahma.

"TeliBrahma addresses the critical needs of measurement, activation for the display in terms of educating users across the mall about the activity in a cost effective manner, as well as engagement and conversion by delivering information and a call-to-action directly to mobile users when they are looking at the car," Mr. Narasimha said.

Going forward, there will be Chevrolet product displays happening during every weekend in almost any mall in the country.

Mobile marketing in India is at takeoff phase and Bluetooth based marketing is catching on, according to TeliBrahma.

"The Bluetooth trend is growing faster than any of the other verticals of mobile marketing, since it is zero cost to consumers, which ensures great user acceptance," Mr. Narasimha said. "Marketers can engage with their customers with various options like advergames, contests, video, ringtones, Flash and social networking.

"In India, Bluetooth-based marketing is lead by us and we have seen a huge scale in last two quarters," he said. "Our BluFi network is easily the world's largest operator-independent mobile network spread across 18 cities in India."

TeliBrahma's BluFi network includes 1,000 or so locations, including a presence in 500-plus permanent locations, a million-plus active users month on month and 10-15 national campaigns each month.

"Several brands doing the activity on a month on month basis," Mr. Narasimha said. "In last two quarters alone we have served more than 40 customers and at least 30 of them are doing repeat activity."