Athens International Airport
* What is the project about?
The project is about giving interactive mobile services to as many visitors as we can. The first phase is the pilot. AIA and Cytech wanted to test the feasibility of this project as there aren’t many such project all over the world. The aim was to develop a number of simple and valuable services that would be tested by the AIA personnel. Not just IT but also marketing and administrative personnel. We wanted to have feedback so we make any necessary alterations before we go public.
The first thing was to install 7 Bluevibe Hotspots at the departure terminal. These hotspots were not able to cover all the terminal but they are in such locations that cover the cafeterias and the corridors. After the installation we made all the connections to the Bluevibe Server installed at the AIA premises.
There were a number of challenges such as, power over ethernet, remote power cycling, decoration of the hotspots to look pretty and we achieved all these with the aid of the AIA personnel in about two months. Especially the decoration issue was hard as the rules are very strict.
If you visit AIA you can see the blue plaques at the ceiling, these are antenna containers. After the installation we train the AIA personnel to use the Bluevibe Manager, our web based administration and monitoring tool. They now are able to operate it mostly by themselves.
We also developed a special application for AIA for managing their content and of course a special version of the Bluevibe Browser, the mobile application installed in the visitors’ mobile phones.
* What kind of services are you intending to provide?
The most important service during the first phase is the Flight Information. You enter the flight number and get information about the departure/arrival time, status etc. The other service is about the retail shops of the airport.
It is a mobile shopping catalog. All retail shops inside AIA can present their products and offers. The marketing department of the Airport can change dynamically the images, texts etc using a CMS. We also provide a number of information concerning the airport itself, like left-luggage” areas or safety rules.
* Do the users accept to install a Java mobile application?
We ve just ended our test phase so our users were AIA personnel. They dont have serious objection on installing a new application as lons as this application is useful and not create any problems to their mobile phone. When the number of employees started to install this application and they saw that there is no problem and that they are able to use it we overcame any hesitations.
I think that the most important thing when you ask someone to install an application is to give him a good reason why to do it. If it is something really useful and “alive” they’ll accept it and try to install it.
We confront the same hesitations during the DontDrinkandDrive campaign we currently run for Johnnie Walker. We have developed a mobile application containing all the necessary information (taxi call numbers, bus itineraries, metro time tables) so if you decide to drink to take public transportation and not your car.
Most of the people find this application useful and at the moment they undestand what it is, they are willing to install it. It is 100 times better that a piece of paper containing all this information and that you ll probably throw it away after 5 minutes.
* Since it’s not yet public, and you don’t have any numbers on use, do you have any numbers regarding how many users have their Bluetooth turned on?
You will be surprised, and so our partners at the AIA did. More than half a million different devices have been scanned during the last 10 months and only at 7 hotspots at the departures terminal. I have to add that there is currently no signage and no one knows that there is a Bluetooth system active in the area. We know that we will double or triple this number if we cover the whole terminal and inform people about it.
* What would you identify as the main problem with this project?
I think the major problem hasn’t appeared yet. I strongly believe that when we go public there will be such great demand that we ll have problem to serve them. As you understand, our goal is to serve more than 300.000 unique users in a year.
Based on this assumption and some statistics concerning the number of people per hotspot and the time a user browse the services, we make our plans for the full scale installation. But, I am afraid, the real number will be greater. We are trying to be ready for this case also. I ll keep you updated but I am sure you will be informed from your sources when we go public.
Johnnie Walker Mobile Marketing Campaign
* Could you please also describe the JW campaign to us?
The concept is simple. Don’t drink and drive. It is about responsible drinking. Johnnie Walker has great tradition in this kind of events that contain messages like this. This time they have decided to include proximity marketing to the whole scenario. GetItRight marketing services, in cooperation with Cytech have designed a campaign with the following innovation.
Instead of giving people a plain paper with information about the means of transport during late hours, they also send this information to their mobile phones.
This way, this information which includes, taxi call numbers, bus and underground time schedule, is stored at the mobile phone and can be used anytime. The paper version is OK but it is most of the times misplaced somewhere and you can’t find it the next day.
These events take place at crowded squares of Athens from 20:00 till 24:00 just before people enters the bars and pubs for a drink. Everyday we setup a kiosk where promoters call people to play an internet game and win prizes. At the same time Bluevibe is responsible for sending the mobile application to the people as they stop in front of the kiosk.
* Can you share the penetration rate there with us?
I can’t disclose our statistics as the campaign is still running but I have to say that we believe that the penetration rate will be greater than 10%. We can discuss it again when it is over, at the end of May.
* What would you identify as the main problem with this campaign?
The main problem is the infrastructure. As you understand, we are in the open and we have constantly problems with electricity and network. We are lucky to use a system like Bluevibe because it is very versatile.
We use it as we think appropriate during each event day. If we see that the network is not stable enough we operate the Hotspots in standalone mode and when the network is back again they are synchronised with the server, uploading all the statistics and downloading new campaign settings. On the other hand if the network is stable we operate them in Networked mode, having all the advantages like online monitoring and administration and live statistics.
Mr. Antoniadis’ views provide a very interesting inside view on the workings of proximity marketing campaigns. I believe those of you interested in starting out in the bluetooth marketing sector, have plenty to learn and I highly recommend you keep some of these hints in your mobile marketing notebook.
I hope you enjoyed it, and found it valuable as much as I did.. Feel free to share your views, or questions, if you have any. I’m sure Mr. Antoniadis will be more than happy to follow up.
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