First-class passengers waiting for Virgin Atlantic Airways flights at London Heathrow airport are being targeted with ads on their cell phones for a new Range Rover SUV, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Under the program, produced by London-based billboard advertiser Maiden Group PLC and technology firm Filter U.K. Ltd., also of London, transmitters send text messages to passersby in Virgin’s first-class lounge asking them if they would like to view a video-clip ad on their phone’s screen.
The ads work only on phones enabled with Bluetooth, since the transmitters, installed in billboards at the terminal, use that technology to beam the ads to phones within a 100-yard range.
During a two-week test of the program, the transmitters reached 87,000 phones, and 13,000, or 15%, agreed to see the clip, according to the report. Rival airline British Airways used the service last month to send out ads to promote its Web site from billboards around London.
In the U.S., moviegoers at the Loews Lincoln Square Theater in New York, Lowes Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles and San Francisco’s Loews Metreon Theater can use their Bluetooth-enabled phones this summer to download content from various Twentieth Century Fox movies (PROMO Xtra July 28).
Transmitters in kiosks set up in those theaters send text messages alerting users that they can download movie trailers, wallpapers and ringtones for movies Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fantastic Four and Kingdom of Heaven. That program, which began in May, ends today.
