The second Loxion Motor Show at Soweto’s Mopanya Mall was the platform to launch the WesBank Street Race which will be run on the streets of Soweto on 19 July 2009. The race will be a world-first for WesBank and Soweto as it will be the first time a professional motor sport event of this scale will be hosted in a township.

Brandscape were briefed to engage the audience at the motor show and raise awareness of the WesBank Street Race Soweto by deploying promoters with wearable Hypertags delivering free rich media content and rewards directly to visitors’ mobile phones via Bluetooth.

The free content included wallpapers, a calendar reminder for the Street Race event and instant win prizes that could be redeemed by scanning mobile 2D instant win barcodes using Brandpoint scanners at the WesBank stand. The stand was the focus of activity where visitors were exposed to more information on the up and coming Street Race.

Gordon Parkin, CMO of Brandscape commented: “Motorsport in South Africa is a big draw for people of all ages and WesBank has always been a major sponsor. What’s really impressive is that WesBank have taken the sport to the people producing a real sense of ownership, pride and creating employment, few brands can say the same. The communication of the event had to be just as compelling and memorable and this is why WesBank brought in Brandscape to provide mobile proximity marketing support.”

Brandscape utilise Hypertag Bluetooth proximity marketing to actively deliver brand communication and asset content in a quick, meaningful and personal way that is permission based, interactive and rewarding. To effectively connect and engage people we need to take a much more ‘Tactile Marketing’ approach. The mobile phone based mechanic is quick and easy, making visitors more responsive to the brand experience. Verification of this is clearly demonstrated in the achievement of a 40.54% content download conversion rate from mobile phone alerts for WesBank over 5 days at the Loxion Motor Show.

The value to WesBank of using Brandscape proximity marketing solutions is not only in the uniqueness and effectiveness of the communication but in the comprehensive interaction data reports from the Hypertags and the Brandpoint scanner redemptions. When used to full effect, mobile tactile research gives real-time insight and knowledge to marketers about how to communicate their brands in the right place at the right time to the right people. The successful result is that the audience permits the brand to participate in their lives in a much deeper and more interactive way that makes future WesBank communication to the same audience far more acceptable.

George Nyabadza, General Manager of Marketing at WesBank, says “Our job at the moment is to make sure the maximum number of people are aware of the Street Race event and that they are reminded of it at the right time. Our mobile content and the calendar reminder we send to people’s phones in particular, allows us to do just that. The fact that I can monitor exactly how the promotion is doing at any given time using a web application developed by Brandscape for my mobile phone, allows to me stay in touch and in control.”

“Tactile proximity marketing is not mass media, it is niche communication that has real relevance to the people it touches and because of this the content and experience will be extended outwards by influencers. The fact is that peer-to-peer communication is trusted and adds far more weight than traditional brand advertising. This creates the ‘small world phenomenon’ which has the ability to reach and attract tens of thousands of like-minded individuals, it’s the ‘spark and torch’ scenario that helps build communities and WesBank’s brand legacy.” said Parkin.