Can Bluetooth ever be cool?

And what did real people say about Bluetooth at the IncisorTV Bite-Back event?


That is a question that must be troubling technology marketeers across the world, including the makers of headsets and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, and the organisation that manages Bluetooth technology – the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

Bluetooth has been around since 1998, and actual Bluetooth devices started appearing a couple of years later. The very first commercially available Bluetooth product was from Ericsson, as reported in Incisor in November 1999.



From that day forth, promoters of Bluetooth have hoped that there would be a global wave of enthusiasm for the technology from consumers. But it just hasn’t happened. Despite the fact that legislation in a number of countries forces us to use Bluetooth headsets if we want to talk on a cellphone in our cars, Bluetooth daily usage is apparently going down, not up. Research company Strategy Analytics says by as much as 40% in the USA over the last year.

Here at Incisor we think that a big part of the problem is that nobody, but nobody has managed to make wearing a Bluetooth headset cool. Instead, the words ‘Bluetooth’ and ‘naff’ are heard together on far too often a basis. Only taxicab drivers and people who wear leisure suits made from synthetic materials (ok, they are often the same people) seem to think it is OK to be seen walking around wearing a Bluetooth headset.

The web is loaded with anti-Bluetooth humour, including this. Bluetooth-mocking movies are even being used as a device by companies marketing products. Check this commercial out for Keystone Light Beer. Even the vendors of Bluetooth equipment are doing it – thanks, Philips, for this one.

Some claim to be working to try to make Bluetooth cool, and have been using the old chestnut of celebrity endorsement. Courtesy of Plantronics’ marketing machine, we learn that P Diddy, Eva Longoria and Brooke Shields apparently all use Plantronics headsets. Bluetooth headsets have even made their way into music videos – Motorola product placement is at work as we watch this one for Fergie’s Big girls don’t cry. This is one of the better ones – check out that car, that girl, that track, and the headset is OK too.

But it is not working! Or else, why are all of those iPod users still walking around with their tacky white plastic headsets? Why would we want to use wired headsets when there is a huge range of wireless headsets on the market now for similar money?

And surely this must be holding back the more widespread deployment of Bluetooth technology in other consumer electronics devices?

With some justification, the Bluetooth SIG and big-name consumer electronics (CE) companies that are supporting Bluetooth will point to the fact that billions of Bluetooth chips have been shipped, and have been built into many products that are in the hands of consumers all over the world. That is true, but it doesn’t mean that these people are using Bluetooth, or that massive chip sales means that Bluetooth has become aspirational (like, dare we say it, an iPod) or, to use the word again, cool.

So, what is the problem, and is it too late? Can Bluetooth regain the momentum it had in the early years, when people actually criticised the Bluetooth trailblazers for creating too much publicity and too much pent-up demand and hype (‘bet they’d like some of that back now!)? What would it take?

We have theories, but we want to hear from the big wide world. So we have been promoting a ‘Can Bluetooth be cool?’ blog via all of Incisor’s channels, including Twitter, Facebook and business networking sites such as LinkedIn. There have been a great number of contributions from people all over the world – some constructive, and some taking the opportunity to share some web ‘humour’. You can read all of the many, many comments by clicking on the link above, and read it at the Incisor site.


IncisorTV takes to the streets

And we took our investigation a stage further. On the 26th of September Incisor staged a public event called Bite-Back (Bluetooth/Incisor – Bite-Back – geddit?) at a venue in the UK where there was live music and – the main point – lots of young people. We took the IncisorTV cameras, a bunch of Bluetooth products and we interviewed people and asked them for their views. These can be seen by clicking on this link and watching the IncisorTV movie. As with the blog comments, there was a broad selection of views, some less than complimentary, but listening to these people’s views, thinking and responding is better than maintaining a head in the sand attitude. All of the marketeers at all of the Bluetooth consumer device companies may think they know what the consumers want, but there is nothing like hearing it from the consumers themselves.

Incisor is committed to looking for ways to Make Bluetooth Cool and plans to roll out the Bite-Back event programme, staging live events in the US, Scandinavia, Europe and maybe even Asia. The Bite-Back concept seems to have struck a chord. Headset company Jabra supported the first event, and Bluetooth SIG exec director Mike Foley suggested on Twitter that it would be good (cool?) to stage the event on the SIG’s home turf in Seattle.
So, we talked about it and we have confirmation of support from the Bluetooth SIG for the next Bite-Back event, which will take place in Seattle at the end of October.

We can’t do this on our own, so in order to do make the Bite-Back programme work as well as it can do, we need support from companies that want to be – and are brave enough to be ( ) - part of the programme. If you are interested, contact Vince Holton.