We’ve seen plenty of Bluetooth campaigns, and they usually involve ads on public phones or bus shelters that send messages to passersby with Bluetooth-enabled devices, offering them downloadable content.

One potential problem with these, however, is they usually target commuters on the go, with less likelihood that the target will download the content.

Now there’s a new alternative: Bluetooth advertising in bars and restaurants. The hope here is that since people are sitting at bars and restaurants for an extended period of time, they’ll be more likely to check out the content that’s offered.

"They’re not running by a bus shelter trying to get somewhere. They’re already at the destination," says Lee Levitz, vice president of marketing for Zoom Media in New York. "Now the audience has time to explore the content."

Zoom last week updated a portion of its indoor network of backlit signs in bars and restaurants, upgrading about 100 signs in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago with Bluetooth capabilities from France’s Kameleon Technologies.

The company says it’s on the verge of pinning down its first round of advertisers and that the medium works particularly well for entertainment marketers.

"Entertainment because they have great content," Levitz says. "You could do scenes from next week’s episode and update weekly, or maybe scenes from a DVD."

Levitz says Zoom chose to start with sports bars and happy-hour-type locations in the three cities because they have a relatively high number of tech-savvy patrons. But he says the system can be rolled out in other markets with a few weeks' lead time.

Here's how it works: When a customer is within range, 30 feet, and his or her Bluetooth-enabled device is set to "discoverable," the person receives a message from the advertiser asking if they'd like to download content. If they say yes, the content is delivered right to their device to their cell phone or laptop.