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Imagine being able to reach customers with an almost limitless choice of content as they stand at the decision point, right in front of your product, in the store.

Now imagine being able to get detailed data on their interaction with that content, every single time.

That’s the promise of NFC.

NFC stands for Near Field Communication, a technology you may already be familiar with in the retail environment. It is the same radio-frequency technology that allows you to allow you to pay with you credit card just by holding it near a reader for a few seconds. This immediate connection doesn’t require Wi-Fi to work and is secure.

Recently, Avery Dennison released a new variation on this technology called DirectLinkTM , which is part of a POS display. It interacts with NFC enabled smart phone to provide cloud-based information such as

  • Coupons
  • Surveys
  • Offers
  • Recipes
  • Tutorials
  • videos
  • Link to web sites
  • Manuals

A potential customer with a NFC equipped smart phone can swipe within approximately 10 cm of the Device and have access to information that can be organized by the product manufacturer or POS vendor.

Smart phone manufacturers have only just recently begun to roll out NFC technology, Apple Pay and Google Wallet being the two most notable examples. Phone-based NFC is set for rapid and widespread popularity however: It is estimated that by 2018, 1.2 Billion Smart phones will be NFC ready.

Viewed from the vendor side this technology has massive potential: a recent study by Kraft Foods found that in a retail environment, users were 12 times more likely to engage with NFC than with a QR code.

Avery Dennison mentions that analytics are available on their system, but doesn’t mention whether they are proprietary or not. Because this technology is cloud based however, it is very feasible that it could provide data to Google Analytics, a popular web-based analytics program, through the use of what is called the google measurement protocol, using some programming. Google Analytics could measure things like the number of downloads, or video viewings.

Another advantage of this NFC POS technology is that the device used to ‘’capture’’ the smart phone’s attention can easily be hidden inside the POS and could even be integrated into individual product packaging, without taking up any extra space or changing the design.

As each new generation of smart-phone comes out, more and more product manufacturers and vendors are likely to use this powerful technology and you can expect NFC to quickly become a permanent part of the POS and packaging landscape.

If you would like to know more about the practical application of this technology for your products, such as adding NFC labels and implementing NFC readers, contact us. We’d be happy to help.

 

 

 

 

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