What NFC Means For Advertising

Tired of your bulky, receipt-filled George Costanza wallet? Last week Google announced the answer to your prayers with Google Wallet. Neatly packed into the next Google Nexus phone, this NFC-enabled app will release you from your back-end woes. From the outset, you’ll be able to tap your phone to pay wherever MasterCard PayPass is currently accepted.

The rumours about NFC implementation on mobile devices already had me pretty excited. But what really has me revved up about hardware-based NFC is the advertising potential. The idea of a universally adopted technology to bridge the gap between digital and the physical world is what we in Digital Marketing have been dreaming about. I know we all had (have?) high hopes for QR codes but for me there are just too many barriers for adoption. Third party app downloads, opposing technologies and some really terrible executions (QR codes in subways – REALLY?) have really hindered adoption in North America. And this is exactly where NFC will change the game.

So how can advertisers take advantage of this? Well the most obvious is how Google already plans to use it in their Places program, scrapping the printed poster for NFC-enabled smart posters. Consumers can simply tap their NFC-enabled smart phone to the smart poster and boom, you get the additional Places information formerly served up via QR code. The extensions into print media are only limited to your creativity. In-store shelf talkers could serve up user product reviews, recipes, or a simple coupon to help make that next purchase decision. Same goes for automotive… NFC-enabled window stickers could provide a host of relevant info. There are so many integrations I could rhyme off here but I’ll stop, because alas I gots to get paid, yo!

Here’s the reality of it all… All forms of print media could essentially be made digital with a tiny little NFC tag, save for billboards, which could be the right place for that giant QR code the client asked for. We don’t really want anyone climbing up scaffolding to tap a billboard anyway, do we?