Scott Esdaile

NFC. No, it’s not the Global Financial Crisis on a Noosa-specific level. No, it’s not the Nanango Football Club. It’s ‘Near Field Communications’ and it sounds like it’s going to open some doors to innovative radness.

While I’m sure the boffins will protest against my simplification, NFC is basically a way of conducting secure data transfers between two devices held close together – hence the ‘Near Field’ in NFC. Essentially an extension/hybrid of technologies like Bluetooth and QR Codes, NFC allows for sharing, pairing and transactions to occur between NFC-enabled items like smartphones. Simple.

If you’ve begun to notice ‘tap to pay’ eftpos terminals appearing at checkouts, that’s the beginning of NFC payments starting to roll out with chip-enabled credit cards. The same goes for any electronic ticketing systems you might have used on public transport. And the recent announcement of Google Wallet has definitely turned the spotlight onto the approaching reality of mobile payments and transactions.

So what does NFC mean for advertisers and marketers?

I guess it could well be the catalyst for fast interactions that tick the mobile, location-based, personalised and data-driven boxes. It might be an NFC-tagged poster or sticker that you tap your phone on to collect a voucher, and then an alert that tells you where the nearest store is to redeem it.  Or a reminder of your available loyalty points and a shopping list appearing because you’d walked into the supermarket.

Or imagine if every product on the shelf had a little chip that you could scan with your phone to find the latest reviews, prices and promotions. Or perhaps a supermarket trolley that was aware of the products you were adding to it and then offered suggestions for other items based on a mix of recipes that used the ingredients you have and your recent shopping history.

Or perhaps even a trolley that simply counted off the remaining items left to buy based on the shopping list stored on your phone – and once you’ve finished shopping, you conveniently walk straight out to the carpark with payment occurring automatically as you walk past the checkout area.

Or maybe it’ll be an outdoor poster that simply provides you with a song/photo/game/website in return for an element of social sharing or automated data transfer. Or perhaps even an outdoor poster that changes what product or offer is being displayed – based on where you are now, where you’ve been, your personal information and your shopping history.

Or maybe… maybe we should all just watch Minority Report again! Seems we’re not all that far off the advertising future envisioned in Spielberg’s 2002 flick.

What do you think? Am I on track with my future-gazing? What are your thoughts on how this technology could be implemented?

{First published on BCM’s Two Cents blog}