Air Force Takes Bluetooth Marketing On Recruitment Trail

The US Air Force has taken up mobile marketing as part of its Do Something Amazing tour, using Bluetooth as a way to attract people to the tour. People with devices with Bluetooth turned on will be pinged with an invitation to visit the Air Force stand at various sporting events, reports Ad Age. “Once inside the event space, consumers will find pods dedicated to each of the career paths the Air Force has to offer. Within those pods will be stickers sporting quick-response codes that will enable users to download documentary-style videos to their phones about Air Force careers.” Bluespamming issues aside, I’m not sure that sending people a bluetooth message, getting them to go to a physical location, and then sending off messages to download content is the most efficient method of getting onto consumers handsets. I suppose it does have the benefit of selecting people with a strong interest, and probably getting the phone numbers as well. Although relatively few people have the phones required for this (there’s also SMS info) the Air Force wants to get in now so it is “going to be well-established when the market becomes more saturated”.
The Air Force hopes the method will put the information in the pockets of potential recruits, so it’s with them all the time and they can pull it out and show other people…hope springs eternal. “Event marketing is a great place to engage people, but there’s a lag time between when we engage with them at the tour and when they get home and explore on their computer. This eliminates that gap. They immediately walk away with a video they like, a ringtone they heard, a wallpaper they thought was cool.”

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