Proximity Marketing. Wikipedia has this explanation,

Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place.

I like the name “proximity marketing” because it not only sounds very hip, but also self-explanatory by itself, and makes perfect sense for trade shows.

3 years ago I had my first encounter of proximity marketing. I was in Edinburgh to attend a SEO conference, my friend asked me, “Did you get that when you passed by the record store?” “Did you get the discount coupon? It was beamed to your cell phone through bluetooth.” My friend then showed me his discount coupon on his cell phone. Can you get the scene? People walk by and get beamed…. Then when I was in London, flipping a magazine, the term “Proximity Marketing” caught my eyes. Later I was introduced to Fred Durman. He showed me his new invention, using bluetooth to broadcast marketing message. He called it “Bluecasting,” the synonym of “Proximity Marketing.”

Bluecasting can be integrated with different media properties. My favorite one is the idea of interactive poster. A call to action like “Come Closer” and then the poster will interact with you, send you a sound clip, beam you a coupon, etc. Imagine a trade show organizer can “Bluecast” event announcement, badges; an exhibitor can “Bluecast” a product brochure, a demo video clip, etc. The client-patron interaction can be happened within a proximate distance without physical contact. And we both know how many visitors in a trade show are the rushing passer-by, right?

How Bluecasting works? Here is the presentation clip,

Okay, let me show you another one. Today any trade show organizer can tell you the advantage of visitor pre-registration. Most of the time, the visitors register themselves over the web, the organizer then email back the confirmation, and the visitors come to collect their badges when they arrive the venue. But most of time, when the visitors come to collect their badges, they forget to bring their pre-registered identification. Oops.

My friend Don Cameron in Scotland has a solution. Don’s company has developed a technology to deliver barcode to cell phone through SMS or MMS. Imagine a trade show organizer can register the visitors over the web, and send the confirmation ID or even the whole visitor badge to the registrants’ cell phone. How it works? Take a look,

Inspired by Don’s mobile barcode solution, I have invented my own marketing gadget for fun. Tada! Meet the world first trade show visitor badge on iPod
It is a real deal. All you need is to feed the barcode through RSS and your iPod will receive it just like to download a Podcast. I bet the music trade show organizers will love this idea. Not bad huh.

Well, some people criticize all these proximity marketing or mobile marketing gadgets are the King of Spam. Nope. The King of Spam is always the marketers. But having said that, marketers today indeed work very hard inside the cubicles to think outside the box. In their world, the sky is the limit.

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