TORKE 2.0 Throttleman in Lisboa - Portugal (doesn't Lisboa sound so much cooler than plain old Lisbon?) did this little "Guerrilha" (again, way cooler than "guerrilla") city stunt for their client Throttleman fashions shops.
In order to communicate Throttleman's Autumn-Winter collection several people dressed with Throttleman's clothes walked around the city of oporto with giant tags outside their clothes . Wherever this group would pass, people around them with which had bluetooth turned on would receive an alert SMS of what was happening around them and to invite them to the nearest Throttleman shop.
Why wasn't this a job back when I was a teenager? "Wanna walk around town, touting shopping bags wearing the latest fashions with a group of friends all day?" Sure! Where do I sign up? Aargh! Born too soon I suppose. We didn't even have fashions. (insert rolled up newspaper bottom of a lake rant here)
Update March 1 2008:
Hi,A few weeks ago we sent you the Throttelman guerrilla action. We’re glad you found it interesting enough to post it but we have a small favour to ask. The concept and execution of the action isn’t Torke’s job. The whole idea is from Throttelman Portugal themselves. So we would like to ask you to remove Torke as being the agency behind the action.
Thank you,
Daniel Caeiro
Torke 2.0
Client: Throttelman
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Definitely beats those sign flipper jobs they have kids doing these days for sure!
I just wonder how many people were charged to receive an SMS advertisement on their phones....(I don't know what type of cell phone plans they have in portugal but here you can get cheap ones that charge you up to $.70 for each SMS you send OR recieve)....
Cool idea indeed
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PermalinkIncoming sms are free to people with Portugese numbers. Depending on your carrier, outgoing are around $.13 domestic and $.29 International. European mobile service is charged very differently than the States. You don't pay for anything inbound here in Denmark, only the calls you make or the messaging you initiate, like landline phones in the US.
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PermalinkGuys guys, pay attention in class, they get bluetooth beamed text messages - their phone carrier has nothing to do with it. It's FREEEEEE!
My objection would be how few you could reach with that trick, around here everyone is paranoid as hell with their bluetooth devices and "hide" or don't have bluetooth on unless they are doing something. A few years back you could scan the train you were on and see ten-twelve phones beaming that their bluetooth was on, last time I scanned I was on a train packed to the limit with people and only one device - locked of course - was on. Don't know what it's like in Portugal though but it would not work here. Well, other than the visual of a pack of kids roaming the streets in fashionable gear. Look they're wearing T-shirts as "winter fashions", I'm so moving to Portugal!
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PermalinkWhat's even more shocking to me than bluetooth access is when people leave their computers open to attack on a network. A few weeks ago I was up at an agency here in CPH, and just for the fun of it, I connected to their wireless network (not password protected) and I could have ransacked over fifty computers. I didn't, but I wonder how many creative, financial, and other internal files I could have sat there and downloaded.
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PermalinkWait hang on, does this mean that you still pay for incoming text and phonecalls on US cel services? Wow. I thought that stuff only happened when you "roamed" outside of your own state (country) - like when I hop over to Copenhagen and have to use a Danish service thus paying roaming fees on incoming calls.
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PermalinkIn the US, you pay for airtime on every call, outgoing or incoming. So if you have a 500 minute per month plan, it applies to every call. I don't know about sms or other messages, but of course there are unlimited plans. And I think most roaming charges have been done away with in the states, at least my plan with AT&T has no roaming charges. I'm not sure why I even keep my US phone since I only spend about two months a year there at this point.
I have Telia here in DK, and my plan gives me free calls to every other Telia phone, and to all Danish landlines. But I only have 200 minutes for other mobile phones, and calls out of Denmark are at a higher rate. So when I call you in Malmö, I pay more than when I make a call to Southern Jutland even though you're much closer. And the weird thing is that the 200 minute plan is the biggest one Telia offers. If we both had 3 Mobile, Sweden and Denmark are both included in their plan with no roaming or long distance charges.
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PermalinkI know, that's why my man has 3, so he has no roaming troubles at all - but since he has Danish 3 it is a 5 kronor a minute call for me to ring him - I think he planned that actually. ;)
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PermalinkJust wait until Perle is old enough to have a phone. ;-) And that keeps getting younger and younger it seems. I see kids under ten walking around with phones in CPH.
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PermalinkYeah, the great experiment.
Anyway, regardless if these text messages are sent via SMS over the cell phone carriers network or if the messages are beamed to the surrounding phones a la bluetooth (which makes much more technical sense cause how in earth would you learn the phone number of those who walk past you?) - neither one of these options costs the person who receives a message any money.
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