Barriers of Effective Implementation of Bluetooth Marketing

In Malaysian Retailers

Davoud Amini

Abstract
Digital marketing and e-commerce are increasingly acknowledging technologies that
facilitate communication and improve business to customer interaction. In this regard
Bluetooth as a strong communication technology has been recognized as a tool for
marketing and capturing customers mainly in malls and retail stores. In this approach,
marketers utilize blue-tooth enables methods and tools to grab customers and draw their
attention toward the firm and its marketing activities but even though this technology
seems effective ands interesting however it has some drawbacks and minuses besides
minuses. This research aims to empirically explore and explain the barriers of effective
implementation of Bluetooth marketing in Malaysian retail stores.

Introduction
Marketing is all about creating, delivering and communicating customer value in order
to establishing, managing and maintaining deep and broad relationships with customers
and satisfying needs of stakeholders (Kotler and Keller 2006, p.5). So creating a durable
bond with customers is at the heart of marketing and in this regard a company must first
and foremost draw the attention of customers towards itself and then wisely
communicate its value offering to them in order to convince them about the offerings of
the firm in the form of product, services and other components (Kotler et al. 2009, p.
200). In this sense, marketing managers have been always trying to use modern
technologies and approaches in order to improve and boost the ability of interacting
with customers (Schibrowsky et al. 2007).

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Respecting this fact, modern technologies not only have enabled organizations to
improve their technologies but also have remarkably increased their communicativeness
and customer responses (Ngai 2003). One of these methods has been Bluetooth
technology that is a relatively new way of sending and receiving information and has
been used as a marketing communication tool over the past few years (Heines
2008,2009) . The application of Bluetooth in marketing has given rise to Bluetooth
marketing and the literature review of this study is devoted to this issue and briefly goes
though some literature even if few and not conclusive in order to show what this
concept means and what factors must be acknowledged in effectively utilizing it.

Literature Review
Bluetooth marketing is interchangeably used and defined with proximity marketing
(PM), according to Heins (2009) proximity marketing is “‘free to consumer’ and fully
accountable means by which brands can deliver a personal experience and branded
content directly onto the mobile phone of their target audience based on their proximity
to a physical location and the consumer’s desire to interact with the brand. Furthermore,
it adds accountability to experiential marketing, the value of which is well understood
by brands as a means by which they can engage in a very personal way with hard-to-
reach target audiences”. Thus, top brands understand that mobile marketing is
able to deliver a personal, targeted experience that can provide an incentive
to consumers to act using relevant and compelling content (Heins 2009).
These definitions and explanations show that:

1. An effective Bluetooth marketing requires a fully aligned sender and receiver.

2. Messages must be effectively designed and the content determines the efficiency
of the system and response of the receiver.

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Furthermore, the staffs that use this system must be fully equipped with the skills and
knowledge required to run the process of the system because this system is all about
proximity and physical intimacy with customers and the way company contact
customers directly and heavily impact the brand image and attitudes of the customers
(Bluetooth SIG 2007;ABI Research 2008).

Hence to efficiency utilize such systems and design influencing way of grasping
customers with attractive contents a company must broadly and deeply understand its
customers (Farber, 2008;Bluetooth SIG 2007a,b) and this understanding determines the
return of the investment on this technology (Heines 2008). In addition, since the
medium of information exchange and triggering customers response in the new
approach of marketing is mobile devises the attitudes of customers about receiving
unsolicited messages play a critical role in their further behavior and words of mouth
(iMedia Agency Summit 2007;Mobile Marketing Association 2007 cited in Heins
2008). Thus as a modern method this marketing system requires a full attention given to
three areas:
1. Investment in proper mobile messaging technologies
2. understanding the attitudes of the customers towards the method of
communication, responsiveness and also equally importantly the content they
receive
3. fully trained front-line and promotional staff that are potent in interpreting
customer responses and encourage customers and also supporting the customers
in a proximity

Arguably these three factors create some degrees of complexity for firms and engender
difficulties for effective implementation of Bluetooth marketing in retailing context. In
developing countries which retailers, in particular, do not have supportive and
promising infrastructure, customer knowledge and skillful frontline employees

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investigating the above factors as barriers of effective adoption of Bluetooth marketing
makes a strategic sense.

Research Problem and Knowledge Gap

Literature in Bluetooth marketing is not strong enough and a lot of knowledge gaps can
be found. One of the main gaps is the lack of empirical knowledge about the main
obstacles of effective implementation of Bluetooth marketing in Malaysian retailers.
Therefore, this study tries to remove this gap through an empirical study

Research Objectives
This study pursues the following objectives. Fulfilling these objectives makes this study
an applicable work and also clarifies how this study has been undertaken
1. To understand Bluetooth marketing and its main theoretical sides
2. To explore and explain the main difficulties in effective adoption of Bluetooth
marketing as a modern digital marketing method in Malaysia from the
perspective of retailers
3. to discuss the research findings and its managerial implications
4. to show directions for further studies in this filed of research

Research Questions
In conducting this study the below questions must be properly discussed in order to
show the progress and contribution of this research to the existing body of knowledge:
1. What is Bluetooth marketing?
2. How does Bluetooth marketing improve marketing in the malls for retailers?
3. How do Malaysian retail executives thing about Bluetooth marketing?
4. What are the main factors that create obstacle in effective adoption of Bluetooth
marketing in Malaysian retailers?

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Methodology
The philosophy of research is interpretivism since the researcher explores and interprets
variables and their relationships. The type of the study is applied because it focuses on a
specific kind of enterprise and targets particular operational demesnes of their
performance. Moreover the approach of the study is inductive since the research studies
a sample of a population and then generalizes the findings to the whole population. in
addition the strategy of the study is explanatory not exploratory because the study
explain the relationships between known variables and constructs and finally this study
uses both primary and secondary data and applies statistical techniques to process and
analyze data in order to verify the research hypotheses as proposed based on the
literature review and discussed in the next section

Research Variables
Based on the conceptual findings of the literature review and the theoretical
relationships between the concepts this study has four variables as following:
1. Independent variable are costs of implementing a blue-tooth system and training
required as well as unfavorable view of customers about the privacy issues of
such system
2. dependent variable is the effectiveness of Bluetooth implementation as a
marketing tool for Malaysian retailers

Conceptual framework
Based on the research variables and according to their relationships as found through
the survey of literature as in the previous sections mentioned a schematic conceptual
framework can be illustrated for the purpose of this study.

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 Initial costs

Effective implementation of
Training
the system

Customers’ negative
view

Research Hypotheses
This study is based on three hypothetical statement derived from conceptual findings of
the literature review and primary data are processed and interpreted to verify these
hypotheses.

Hypothesis1) the high initial costs of developing and utilizing a Bluetooth marketing
system is a barrier in effective implementation of this system for Malaysian retailers

Hypothesis2) required training for utilizing a Bluetooth marketing system is seen as an

obstacle for effective adoption of this system amongst retail executives in Malaysia

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Hypothesis3) negative view of the Bluetooth messages as an offensive method by
customers poses a barrier for implementing this system in Malaysian retailers

Data Collection
secondary data are collected through a systematic review of research papers published
in academic journal that are available in databases such as Emerald and Ebsco and
primary data are reaped by a survey and questionnaire method from the retail
executives in some shopping malls in KL, Selangor and Shah Allam in Malaysia over
their business house. The questionnaires were distributed and they were asked to fill it
freely and carefully.

Unit of Study
The unit of this study is Malaysian retailers across states and to penetrate into this
section their CEOs or executives are targeted by this study.

Sampling Procedure
Sampling of this study is judgmental since the samples have been selected on the basis
of their expertise and the method of sampling is tailored according to the professional
ability and awareness of retail executives in implementing information and
communication technology and its equipments

Sample Size
In order to gain the best results and also reach the expected power of data analysis the
number of 150 executives from retailers operating in Kuala Lumpur, Shah-Alam and
Petaling Jaya were selected.

Research instrument

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The research instrument in this study is a close-ended structured questionnaire that is
tested for ambiguity, over-loading and also understandability and number of questions.
The scale of questions is attitudinal and five-option lickert method is applied.
This questionnaire covers the main theoretical parts of the data that are needed for
testing the research hypotheses and also other sectors of conceptual analysis.

Data Analysis and Findings

Data were entered into a SPSS sheet and then based on the conceptual framework as
illustrated previously the best method of investigation was decided as multiple-
regression (MRG) that is utilized in order to test the relationship between more than
one independent variable into one dependent variable as earlier discussed.

Discussion and Implications

To be completed after conducting the research and analyzing data by proper statistical
methods.

Limitation
This research is limited in two ways: one way is the lack of enough theoretical and
conceptual study in Bluetooth marketing or in better words the weakness of literature
that disable the authors in this filed to perform effective and reliable empirical studies
and investigate this technique in practice as this paper tried to do even with constraints
and the second limitation is the time and costs of collecting sufficient and accurate data
from the executives who were not willing to participate or felt shy and shows somewhat
a high degree of hesitancy.

Suggestions for further research in this domain

Although this study strived to explore and explain the technical constraints of adopting
Bluetooth marketing for Malaysian retailers but the process of this research and also the

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presence of some limitations show a need for conducting more studies as both
complementary and comparatory. In this sense it can be suggested that:
1. The context of digital marketing and utilization of digital information and
communication technologies in the modern marketing activities lack holistic and
intensive conceptual studies. so a fertile ground of the study would be
conceptualizing and qualitative research that develop the theoretical side of this
domain.

2. The aim of Bluetooth marketing is to communicate more effectively with

customers who possess Bluetooth receiving equipments such as mobile phones
so a neglected field of study is to understand the responses and reaction of
customers using different devises towards Bluetooth messages.

3. Different shopping environment such as alls or retail chains with different

product ands services can use different Bluetooth methods based on their
marketing offerings and objectives so this subject can be seen as an important,
not yet discussed area of study by which marketing mix strategies can be
effectively tailored in order to grasp customers.

Conclusion
This study targeted the context of e-marketing and explored the reasons of unsuccessful
implementation of Bluetooth marketing as a modern digital method of marketing in
Malaysian malls by retailers. A literature review was conducted to show the building
blocks of Bluetooth marketing and then three critical factors as impediments of
successful and effective adoption of Bluetooth marketing were founds as initial costs of
acquitting and utilizing the system. Time and costs of training to use the system
effectively and finally the negative view and attitude of customers towards the privacy
and security of Bluetooth messages they normally receive. So these three factors were

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hypothesized and 150 retail executives were asked to participate in a survey and the
result of the study showed that all three hypotheses could not be rejected and are posing
significant influence on the effective implementation of Bluetooth marketing.
Eventually the research was concluded by some discussion, proposing managerial
implications and showing limitations and directions for further studies in the future.

References
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