Mercedes, EA Games, Universal, supermarket chain Morrison's, fashion retailer H&M and a number of Unilever brands are amongst thirteen participants in a major new NFC outdoor advertising service which is now live at 325 locations around the town of Reading, UK.
The first large scale NFC out-of-home advertising service has gone live in the British town of Reading this week, and thirteen brands have signed up for the project.
Supermarket chain Morrisons, fashion retailer H&M, Universal DVD and Universal Special Projects, car maker Mercedes, TV channel ITV2, energy drink Lucozade Sport, games maker EA Games and Unilever's Lynx, Toni & Guy, Magnum and Vaseline brands will all be using NFC to promote their products in the coming weeks.
The 'Test the Near Future' project, unveiled last week, is being delivered by out-of-home advertising giant JCDecaux— which has already NFC-enabled 240 sites in Australia — in conjunction with outdoor media agency Kinetic Worldwide and technology provider Zappit.
All the bus shelters and outdoor advertising sites, as well as all the posters in the town's main shopping centre, have been NFC-enabled, making Reading the first to be blanketed with NFC advertising. QR codes are also being used to maximise consumer reach.
Content at each poster site will be updated regularly across the coming month. Each week, different advertisers will provide different content, including special offers, vouchers, games and music.
"This is the first large-scale deployment of NFC technology on the street and is bringing the future of out of home to the here-and-now in Reading," says Nick Mawditt, Kinetic's director of insight and marketing. "NFC is widely regarded as a technology that could transform the way consumers use their mobile phones to interact with their environment... we will be looking closely to see how consumers engage and interact with the content during the trial."