By: Hillel Fuld
After years of writing about mobile technology, I was fortunate enough to have recently started working in the field. At inneractive, I work with some of the industry’s leading names in app development across all platforms, as well as companies on the forefront of mobile advertising. Blue Bite is one such company.
Mobile advertising is a booming industry, and with billions of people using mobile devices across the globe, it is no surprise that advertisers are beginning to realize the potential of targeting consumers via their mobile phones. However, even mobile advertising, just like its parent, the mobile industry as a whole, is evolving at a rapid pace, and Blue Bite is leading the way.
What is Blue Bite?
Blue Bite is an ad network, but not the kind of ad network you are thinking. The company takes a whole new angle to mobile advertising and it is all based on proximity and location. Using all of the available technologies such as Wifi, Bluetooth, SMS, QR Codes, and NFC, advertisers can push content to a user’s mobile phone. Blue Bite has campaigns running in thousands of locations around the U.S and is able to target specific audiences based on their location.
How Does it Work?
Just imagine the following scenario. You are waiting to board your plane at an airport and you pass by a display telling you that if you want exclusive deals in the nearby shop, you should activate your phone’s Bluetooth. If you choose to comply, you receive the content straight to your mobile device. Yes, this is straight out of the future, and hard to believe, but it works, and users are loving it.
Privacy
When I first heard about Blue Bite, my initial response was, where is my privacy and won’t this technology annoy users? I asked that from two different perspectives. On the one hand, as a consumer, I wanted to understand how this technology, which I am sure we will be seeing a lot of in the future, deals with privacy. I was, however, also interested in Blue Bite as someone who works in the mobile advertising space. In advertising, the name of the game is clicks, and to generate clicks, you need to engage the user, and not annoy them. Fortunately, my worries were put to rest and all of Blue Bite’s campaigns are opt-in. Without the user’s consent, they do not receive any ads.
The Future
Right now, Blue Bite focuses on technology such as Wifi and Bluetooth, but given the latest announcements by Google that the company is abandoning QR codes in favor of NFC, combined with the rumors that the iPhone 5 will include an NFC chip, Blue Bite is going to be investing heavily in NFC advertising.
Success Stories
Blue Bite has been around for just over four years, but having closed a round of funding just over a year ago, the company is taking large steps forward and making significant advancements. Blue Bite recently ran a campaign with Corona in which a digital display in bars across NYC pushed ads to users’ devices, who could then download content and benefit from special offers at the bar.
An additional Blue Bite campaign was in association with the movie “Take Me Home Tonight”. With this particular campaign, users were able to scan a barcode on a movie poster and download the mobile app for the movie. You can watch the campaign in action here.
The Future
As I mentioned earlier, no one doubts the potential of mobile advertising, but all the players in this space are brainstorming about how to maximize clicks in mobile ads. Blue Bite has definitely taken a unique approach to overcoming this challenge. When it comes to targeting audiences, there are companies that target countries, others go as far as the city, but nothing beats proximity-based advertising that offers users the ability to receive relevant and practical advertisements straight to their phones. As a consumer and someone who works in mobile advertising, Blue Bite definitely impressed me, and I for one, am very excited to see what they come up with next.
To learn more about Blue Bite, you can find them on Twitter and Facebook or check out their media kit (PDF).