By Cheryl Mack - Marketing Coordinator at Gauge Mobile
Innovation for the new BlackBerry 10 didn’t stop at the device. The creative minds at BlackBerry and their agency Maritz wanted to give people the ability to really get a hands-on experience with the phone as well as its’ bold new OS. They also wanted to draw attention to one of the technological edges the Z10 has over the iPhone – Near Field Communication or NFC.
The Keep Moving Tour campaign was rolled out across the country almost immediately after the launch of the Z10. Featuring BlackBerry-branded vans equipped with a giant, completely functional Z10, doors that open up to reveal an NFC game board, and a seating area inside with the latest devices in both black and white. The vans didn’t take long to garner plenty of attention from people on the street curious to see what the BlackBerry 10 is all about.
From smart TVs to mobile devices to gaming systems to home appliances, it seems that NFC was everywhere at CES this year.
The technology enables devices to transfer content and other information to one another directly, without using a wireless network. Although NFC is not a new technology by any means, it is definitely gaining traction and starting to be implemented in mainstream consumer gadgets in some really cool ways.
Before the show even started, on press day, the kits that were given out to media members from Samsung included a bracelet with an NFC chip instead of the standard USB drive. They wanted to allow smartphone users to utilize this great technology at the most technologically advanced event, and they did a great job!
During the 4-day show itself, NFC seemed to play a common theme among many of the products seen on the exhibit floors, whether it was music players or ways for advertisers to send coupons to customers.
Sony was among one of the big NFC players at CES 2013 with their new line of “one touch” NFC-enabled technologies including phones, TVs and speakers. One example is their new ultra-portable speaker which uses NFC and Bluetooth to allow smartphone devices to connect and play instantly.
Advil and MuchMusic have teamed up with Newad for a high-tech campaign on campuses across Canada.They are using Gauge Mobile’s leading edge NFC technology for a new advertising campaign centered around a contest to promote the popular show “Gossip Girl”, which airs every Monday night at 9 p.m.ET on MuchMusic.
Canadian students will be able to use their NFC-enabled Smartphone to interact with the Advil campaign for a chance to win a trip to New York and Los Angeles, or one of the ten weekly prizes of a $500 value.
So far the campaign has received a great response from university students so we’re excited to see how it develops over the final weeks of the campaign.
Vancouver, Wednesday, November 28, 2012: The Whitepaper, a first of its kind in Canada, provides in-depth research, analysis, and case studies on one of the most talked about aspects of mobile marketing: Near Field Communications (NFC). The document is a collaborative project between Gauge Mobile, Newad and Astral Out-Of-Home, and has been made available completely free of charge to the public at http://www.scanvee.com/nfc-white-paper.
“We found that there wasn’t a lot of publicly available information on this exciting new technology, especially on how it applies to marketing. As a leader in NFC and mobile marketing in Canada we wanted to fill that void for marketers.” Says Tony Vassiliev, Co-Founder of Gauge Mobile. “Our partners contributed immensely by providing relevant research, content, and Canadian case studies. It was a collaborative effort which we hope will provide clarity to an important, but sometimes confusing, area of mobile marketing.”
This August Montreal streets are going digital. Astral Out-Of-Home is launching a beautiful new product: Digital Columns, equipped with 72” HD LCD screens. The units will feature RSS feeds as well as NFC/QR Code tags allowing the advertiser to deliver live-time content, engaging offers and an opportunity for 2-way dialogue with the consumer. Using Scanvee the NFC tags could deliver tailored offers based on location, time of day and consumer device. Astral has lead the charge in Out-Of-Home advertising with many innovative products and we are proud to be working with them on this initiative.
