Chip-Enabled Mobile Marketing Gets Interesting

Chip-enabled mobile marketing provides rational and emotional incentives and leverages the characteristics of the customer relationship, whether they are transactors or “loyals.” An upcoming Smart Card Alliance white paper, “Chip-Enabled Mobile Marketing,” due out next month, will outline twenty trials, pilots and implementations of chip-based mobile marketing from around the world.  It’s exciting to see example of the creativity being unleashed by the power of NFC to create incentives through speed, convenience and customer engagement, and to drive loyalty through discounts and privileges.

Loyalty

Loyalty programs have been the area of greatest activity, going back more than ten years.  Several airlines, such as JAL, Air New Zealand and Air France, are using NFC phones to speed check-in and boarding.  Over the past two years, an explosion of tests of loyalty identification has emerged, many using the bridge technology of contactless stickers.  More sophisticated applications include ability to store multiple loyalty cards (in Korea) or to interact with games (in Japan).

Smart posters and Coupons

Over the past two years, an up-surge of tests and experiments show how NFC and contactless-chip technology improves loyalty through coupons and interaction with smart posters.  These include several combinations of transit and fast-food restaurant s in the U.S., Taiwan, Kuwait, and in Singapore where they test the first real-time redemption of NFC coupons.  Some fast-food providers are beginning to reap the benefits of access to real-time analytics on coupon redemption, customer behavior and demographics.

Advertising and Offers

Mobile advertising typically uses the ubiquitous SMS message technique, but visionary applications of futuristic shopping environments show how smart posters and kiosks can deliver offers and specialized product information to NFC phones. This capability is being tested in concept stores and at trade shows.

Merchandising

The most sophisticated and futuristic techniques emerge with full merchandising and interactions with “smart shelves” and even “magic mirrors,” promising to transform the shopping experience of the future.