Browsing through the April issue of Wired magazine at a book store earlier this week, I stumbled upon a print ad for the Lexus 2013 GS that didn’t have a picture of the car. Featured was a close-up image of the vehicle’s center console with a seemingly intrusive doodle of a phone over the dashboard screen. Looking closely was some body copy that instructed the reader to place their NFC-enabled Android phone close to the NFC tag embedded on the page to experience a demo of what is known as the Lexus Appsuite featuring apps like Bing, OpenTable, iHeartradio, Pandora, Yelp and movietickets.com transforming the car itself into one large mobile device.
This seems to be an advancement from using QR codes in print ads and it speaks to how NFC is making its presence beyond payment systems with which it has had a rather stifling experience so far. And it was not until the widespread adoption of smartphones that we’re seeing a wider canvas of innovation and a much broader opportunity for mobile marketing with NFC.
Briefly investigating where NFC is being put to use threw up some novel and potentially lifestyle-enhancing disruptive uses, below are some of them;
1) Games: Nokia has been experimenting with a new class of games for children and adults
2) Door Security: A company called Lockitron can help you lock and unlock doors using NFC
3) Place information / Virtual tourist guide: NFC tags at the exhibits at the museum of London giving users more out of their visit.
4) Unlocking much more: BMW is attempting to take NFC a step further by building a car key that unlocks much more than just your car.
What works for NFC is the ease of use and quick reading on devices besides the fact that the user does not need to be hooked on to the internet. One has to just tap their device to invoke a rich experience on their screens ranging from simple check-ins and offers to groundbreaking augmented reality experiences the results of which can reveal a valuable pattern of interactions and data points for each individual customer harnessing the true power of data analysis and optimization of content and marketing programs.
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Great post. The capabilities shown on the videos are amazing! I didn’t realize that NFC had such a broad reach.
@tenillelively NFC doesn’t have the reach that is implied by some of these videos, particularly the BMW vid. It’s one thing to be able to store data on the key (or on a phone) but quite another to have the supporting infrastructure to pull off things like using the key to access your hotel room.
Not to mention, there are only a handful of devices here in the U.S. that are NFC enabled.
Seeing what the technology could be capable of, it’s interesting to think about how it might get used in the future, or what type of technology might quickly replace it or come along to compete? Obviously our phones are doing more and more, and becoming more and more integrated into our lives, but I hadn’t considered other devices like car keys – although, like Kelly pointed out, that type of system requires infrastructure (and money to buy a BMW 🙂