NFC technology is making a name for itself in the contactless card space as a mechanism for micropayments, but the next major app could be location-based interactive advertising.
Experts at an NFC seminar in Hong Kong on Wednesday said that cellcos currently trialing NFC solutions that promise to turn mobile phones into payment devices for transportation systems and convenience stores are also looking at other applications. One of the more promising new apps, so-called "smart posters", allows people passing by ad displays to beep NFC-enabled handsets over RFID tags to access info and promotional items.
"Smart posters can enable users to learn about a product or offer, get coupons, subscribe to services, vote in contests, get directions and download ringtones," said Ismael Lavergne, business development director for VivoTech. "They can even make restaurant reservations or call a taxi."
What's more, the information can be tailored to match the user's location and personal profile, he added.
"When the user taps the poster, the handset is automatically connected via the mobile network to the backend system that logs the user's ID and the tag ID, so that it knows who you are and where you are," Lavergne said. "Then the server sends back the relevant information that can be tailored both to you and the physical location of the poster."
Lavergne says NFC-enabled displays have an advantage over other short-range wireless technologies like Bluetooth in that they don't rely on detecting active Bluetooth signals and pushing content to passers-by.
"It's not intrusive, and it's not spam because the user has to initiate the process," he said.
Smart posters are already being trialed in a handful of Asia-Pac markets, said Sophia Tso, associate VP of product sales and delivery for MasterCard Worldwide Asia-Pacific.
For example, MasterCard's NFC pilot project with Taiwan Mobile and Fubon Bank includes a smart poster trial. One poster for a movie theatre awards the user a coupon for free popcorn, while another poster for the Taco Bell Mexican fast food chain promotes a daily special deal.
"To get the details, the user must pass the phone over the chip, and because the actual information is hosted at the backend, Taco Bell can engage its customers with a daily special but doesn't have to print and place different posters every day," Tso said.
"It's a simple application, but very effective, and it can foster brand loyalty and recognition as well as create pull marketing to a targeted customer base," she added.
Of course, the same can be said for similar solutions already up and running. Advertisers in many markets, for example, make use of SMS short codes to engage users. And in a growing number of markets, 2D barcodes offer the same service with a different interface.
And while mobile contactless payments are flourishing in the usual bleeding-edge markets like Japan and South Korea (which mostly use Sony's rival FeliCa technology), mobile NFC is still firmly locked in the trial stage as the ecosystem of banks, cellcos, merchants and equipment makers needed to make it work continues to evolve.
MasterCard and Visa have dozens of mobile NFC trials worldwide between them, and the GSM Association's Pay Buy Mobile initiative has done much to kick mobile NFC into gear, but lack of NFC-enabled handsets remains an issue - only Nokia, Samsung, Sagem and BenQ have such handsets on the market, although MasterCard's Tso said Nokia will have some more NFC phones on the market before the end of this year.
Once mobile NFC is ready for commercial launch, however, the convenience factor alone will drive adoption, said Simon Hu, VP and Greater China GM for Inside Contactless.
On the smart posters front, convenience could also NFC's trump card over 2D barcodes. Using an embedded barcode scanner on a Nokia N95, for instance, requires opening two menu pages before activating the barcode app and then being asked to scan the barcode.
"With an NFC phone, you just tap the tag. It's a much simpler process," says Lavergne of VivoTech.
That's key, he adds, because one of the most crucial elements to making mobile NFC a success is ease of use. "If you have to click "Ëœyes' ten times to download something, people will say "Ëœno' and stop using it."
The NFC seminar was organized by the Hong Kong Retail Technology Industry Association, the Wireless Telecommunications Industry Association, the Hong Kong Productivity Council and the Hong Kong Wireless Development Centre, as well as the government's Chief Information Officer department.