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Long In The (Blue)Tooth

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Daniel Trigub from the BlueBite  management team [1] to find out a little more about their product.

BlueBite have been receiving a bunch of good press recently for some outstanding work in delivering media content to hand-held devices via bluetooth on out of home screens.

Their execution is the model of simplicity: networks add  BlueBite’s small gizmo to their screens which creates a unique wireless address where consumers can choose to opt into or not and download content.

The cost is minimal to networks, advertisers get a measurable audience for the downloads and unlike SMS content, consumer’s don’t need to give out their cell phone numbers. A win-win all round it seems, except – you knew this was coming didn’t you, Ed in the content department.

A prime example was a download for the CW’s Vampire Diaries [2]. It was the exact same trailer I’d seen the night before after Gossip Girl (yes my guilty pleasure), full of fast edits, small type and wide shots, but now reduced to a two inch screen.

Who’s interested? What’s special? Why bother? 

For CW, here’s a free idea; how about ‘Fang mail‘, i.e. downloadable snippets of content that viewers won’t see anywhere else?

Maybe viewers send a cool animation of a stinking garlic rose to someone they don’t like or a single, blood stained fang to someone they do? (maybe two fangs if they really like them) etc.

As the creative guy,  I hate to see re-hashed content just thrown on DOOH screens. My idea may not be the most original, but content providers, especially the networks, need to figure out how to engage their audience on every screen not just the one’s they sit in front of at home.  

And here’s one more free idea for ABC. You’ve got a hot property with Flash Forward [3] which debuted this week in the US – in the UK this show debits this evening on Channel Five, Ed so how about creating a series of short snapshots that tease the audience about what happened when the world blacked out for those 2 minutes 17 seconds?

Maybe they could all be set in different cities in order that the audience can begin to piece together the puzzle for themselves?

I’m all for technology that’s easy to use and which seamlessly integrates itself into existing networks, but let’s make sure the content is as forward thinking as the technology.

BlueBite’s got the platform and delivery down BUT I’d love to see some content providers step up to the plate with some break-though creative.

PS. if you’re over-worked and too busy to bother, I might recommend contacting Jones Digital Media [4], but that would just be shameless self-publicity, which, of course, wouldn’t be tolerated at the DailyDOOH