FireChat Aims to Heat Up Mobile Marketing in Emerging Regions

FireChat, the app that became the star of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests – because it allows users to keep communicating even when the traditional grid comes down – could have an equally radical and democratizing effect on digital marketing across Asia, giving marketers in the region access to consumers in markets previously unreachable due to low levels of Internet penetration.

Open Garden, the software behind FireChat, allows users to communicate directly with each other by using the radios in their smartphones to connect to other phones nearby, creating a chain of connectivity through a local network. For example, in developing markets, this could provide more reliable communications, enabling people to receive and exchange information for free where Internet infrastructure remains weak.

“Many consumers in India are totally inaccessible, and FireChat promises connectivity to low-tier consumers that brands have never been able to reach before,” says Fergus Hay, managing director of Social@Ogilvy APAC at Ogilvy & Mather.

“Imagine what brands like Unilever could do, for example, being able to share the importance of using detergent to wash your clothes, versus the consumers in rural India who only hear about this information through word of mouth,” he says.

India has 243 million Internet users with penetration in urban cities at 36 percent but just 6 percent in rural villages, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India’s 2014 Digital Advertising Report.

Kristin Low, founder of design consultancy On-Off Design and Technology in Hong Kong, expects the FireChat app will help brands to penetrate these low-tier regions in India and other emerging markets that are undergoing significant change.

“FireChat is a really great example of anti-fragile design. It thrives in chaos and as the crowds get bigger, the app gets stronger,” says Low. “There is nothing else out there like it, and you could really see brands being able to use it in a flash mob context, or for niche communities – whether it is for political, religious, or brand marketing – and having that mechanism to target specific groups.”

Micha Benoliel, FireChat’s creator and co-founder, and chief executive (CEO) of Open Garden, says the ability to chat for free is a crucial feature of the app.

“A $5 data plan is going to make a big difference in these regions, and free chatting is going to be key, because once you get adoption, you have tons of opportunity to generate revenue,” he says. “I completely see brands getting verified accounts to push their products. It’s an easy way to broadcast information to a large number of people without the Internet.”

However, FireChat’s adoption in the region may by stymied by its success in Hong Kong – where it was downloaded more than 500,000 times in just one week during the city’s pro-democracy protests – because brands operating in China in particular may be wary of associating with an app that has a reputation as an enabler of political movements, says Napoleon Biggs, commercial director at Hong Kong-based digital brand strategy advisory firm Bolei Digital.

“Most brands in this part of the world are quite nervous,” says Biggs. “You’d need to be quite edgy to use it.”