Proximity Marketing: Welcome to The Orwellian 2st Century

Hmmm, is privacy officially obsolete in this era of anything goes wireless connectivity?

It used to be said that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. But in the 21st century, there are two more inevitabilities you can bet your last dollar on. 1: Technology will continue to crash through our personal firewalls. 2. Whenever technology crosses a new horizon, marketers will not be far behind.

I need to transparent here and tell you that I earn my living in the marketing profession. So regardless of the views I express here, I may well be writing a marketing plan somewhere down the line that uses the very technology that I’m questioning today.

Wireless technology, aka Wi-Fi, is the hot ticket item among tech companies these days. Wireless devices – iphones, Blackberrys, android phones and the now ubiquitous Bluetooth – are cash cows for these companies.

Opportunistic marketers were quick to sniff out a new and lucrative opportunity. It’s called proximity marketing – the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place. For example, you`re in a baseball stadium taking in a game. You’re now a captive audience for a tech savvy marketer with a product whose prime demographic is sports fans.

One company who is jumping on the bandwagon describes their raison d’etre as “Bluetooth marketing, Bluetooth advertising, Bluetooth hotspots, WIFI marketing, Wi-Fi advertising, Bluetooth AP, Bluetooth SPP server, wireless Serial server. Notice the common denominator?

Yes, your trusty Bluetooth is square in the crosshairs of marketers. There are now devices which can detect cellphones within a 200 metre proximity and connect with them. If the phone is Bluetooth enabled, it will receive a prompt about an advertising message – most likely one tailored to the reason you happen to be in that particular location.

A captive audience with a proven affinity that you can send your advertising message to at the very moment in which they are engaged in that activity. It’s a marketer’s dream come true.

But it also means that we’ve reached the day where there is no place technology-enabled marketers can’t find us. The Wi-Fi devices that keep us connected are now portals through which marketers can invade our privacy. Yes, we can decline to accept the message. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is tracking us down from within 200 metres.

In 1949, George Orwell created Big Brother as the fictional dictator of Oceania in his sic-fi novel Nineteen-Eighty Four. Big Brother has since become a metaphor for a state of being where someone unseen is always watching. If Orwell were still alive to write a sequel, he might name his new dictator Bluetooth. The name has changed but the metaphor still holds true.

Substitute Wi-Fi for Sci-Fi. Welcome to the wireless, Orwellian 21st century.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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