by Marino Bresciani

Especially in this period, when in UK the youth knife crime is on the spotlight, there is a SMS service being trialled in schools in East London to prevent it. This service enables youngsters to anonymously report classmates or other youths they suspect of carrying knives to anti-crime charity Crimestoppers UK.

Posters urge youths to text details of potential offenders, such as their name, nickname, school and year.

The charity said the pilot is small-scale as it wants to determine whether misuse of the system is likely to be a problem – for instance, by kids attempting to get innocent classmates into trouble – although it stressed that to-date there have been no problems reported. It will also conduct a review of the scheme once the pilot concludes.

Text messages sent to the Crimestoppers UK number are encrypted and routed through a secure server so informants’ details remain anonymous, according to the companies.

by Marino Bresciani

I am start getting more and more surprised about how the big companies are gathering interest in the bluetooth marketing. In Paris, for example, you can easily find “interactive” advertising box that ask customers to activate the bluetooth on their mobile phones, in order to send them some interesting content: maps of the city, discount coupons, etc etc.

The following is instead a more subtle promotion: to promote popular reality show Big Brother 2008 on Channel TEN in Australia, advertising agency Marketforce in Perth came up with a unique bluetooth SMS campaign that really caught people by surprise. The ads embodied the “Big Brother is watching” slogan, which is the essence of the show. The campaign installed Blue-tooth transmitters in over 20 high-traffic bus shelters around town. The transmitters automatically sent two anonymous messages to any bluetooth enabled phones in the area.

The first message was tailored specifically for the local location, with something along the lines of:

I’m watching u. Ur at the (customized current location)

The second message is received 30-40 seconds later with the big reveal, saying:

Big Brother is back. 7 PM weeknights on TEN

Hopefully people won’t get mad at them.

by Marino Bresciani

This is an idea that came out from Volkswagen, and it is somehow an extension of their policy about polling about all the usual customs of the people. For example, Volkswagen knows that 73% of the people want to take the tiny soap and shampoo from hotel rooms. They also know that 60% of ice cream buyers prefer cones over cups.

On an apparent quest to learn everything, Volkswagen’s launched SMS polls on a big screen on Times Square. In this picture, for example, you can see how VW asks for people preferences inflight.

Results are generally announced one day after, which is a nice invitation for the people to return to the store soon in order to see the results…

by Martin Koppel

Today, when credit card frauds have increased significantly and even moved to social networks like Orkut, it is wise to consider extra payment forms. It all depends on the service you are running, but the overall trend shows that people are thinking seriously before they are providing credit card data. Obviously it is difficult to substitute credit cards, but it is possible to give people alternative payment forms. People who tend to be suspicious or recently read about credit card frauds would like to use something more secure or at least something that seems more secure to them.

For smaller payments I would suggest SMS-billing as an alternative. It has its own disadvantages, but studies have shown that people sense it as secure, anonymous and easy to use payment method.

Here are some points why web based company should consider SMS-billing:

• almost everybody can use it – over 95% of people in most of the developing and developed countries carry a mobile phone,
• people can use it despite the location or time,
• you are able to target young people and reach those who don’t have a credit card,
• people are using it impulsively – SMS-payment is simple and doesn’t take time,
• smaller prices drive people to consume more,
• no chargebacks – people don’t have to worry that something extra is taken from them,
• it supplements the existing revenue stream – our experience with web based companies have shown that while integrating SMS-billing as an extra option, revenues have increased,
• people sense it as more secure measure, because they don’t have to share their personal data.