Purple WiFi has installed its WiFi solution at the new Mahdlo Youth Zone in Oldham. This allows the zone to not only deliver a safe and secure internet connection to the young people using the centre, but also allows Mahdlo to promote relevant events and news to members.
Purple WiFi allows organisations to build brand awareness and attract new visitors without the need for big marketing budgets or costly time investment, which could distract from the day-to-day running of the activities. This is ideal for a centre like Mahdlo, which is a registered charity and not for profit.
Mahdlo Youth Zone has been designed to inspire and motivate, offering an exciting range of activities and opportunities for all young people across Oldham. It costs 50p for members or £1 for visitors to attend and activities include a 7m high indoor climbing wall, dance classes, boxing, media and creative arts, Enterprise Hub, a huge variety of sports, band rehearsal space, and much more. Additionally, young people have the opportunity to learn new skills to help them pursue work and are provided with support to reach their full potential.
Purple WiFi ensures that anyone using the internet service within the Youth Zone can login by liking Mahdlo’s Facebook page, or following them on Twitter. The Mahdlo team has access to a secure customer portal with tools at their disposal to view the WiFi behavior of users and find out more about the new fans and followers who have logged on. Depending on the age, gender and WiFi patterns of the users, offers and updates can be carefully targeted to attract new youngsters to the Youth Zone as well as rewarding existing loyalty.
Commenting on the new service, Gavin Wheeldon, CEO at Purple WiFi, said: “The idea for Purple WiFi came about because everyone, particularly young people, expect WiFi wherever they go, but the organisation sharing the internet connection doesn’t gain anything in return and, in many cases, ends up with a slower and unsecure internet connection for their own operational needs. Purple WiFi allows them to gain an understanding of their user demographics while building brand awareness through social networking.”
Commenting on the decision to install Purple WiFi, Claire Crossfield, Development Manager at Mahdlo said: “It is really important to us that all our members can have access to the internet at Mahdlo, which helps break down barriers and promotes equality. Young people can interact with their friends through social media, look for jobs, get careers advice and check out what else is taking place in the area that could be of benefit to them.
“From an operational point of view it also helps us to communicate with our members through Facebook and Twitter. We can now engage with our members and talk to them about enterprise and provide them with examples of local people and business that have gone on to have great successes.”
Unlike the WiFi services many offer, Purple WiFi addresses the obvious security risk that companies often leave themselves wide open to, when providing public WiFi. Rather than providing a completely open signal, with no login or validation requirements and no way of capturing information about users and their usage, Purple WiFi end users are authenticated via their social networking account. Purple WiFi is also a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), meaning that users of the service are protected from the types of abusive content that the IWF is working so hard to remove from the internet.