The company partnered with Proxama for the mobile initiative. The NFC technology is used on posters promoting Basketball Wives.

“The strategy here is to demonstrate to retailers, advertisers, TV networks, etc the power that NFC technology can bring to the marketing of their brands,” said Neil Garner, CEO of Proxama, London..

“More and more smartphones will be NFC-enabled over the coming 12 months so we need to get brands to start thinking seriously about how they can benefit from using NFC,” he said. “The content can be transferred instantly with no need for a network signal.

The speed at which mobile users can get the content with a simple tap means there is much more likelihood of passing trade tapping the poster than if they had to go through a more laborious procedure.”

Proxama http://www.proxama.com had developed mobile-optimized content to ensure that the overall brand experience is received by all users.

The show must go mobile
The VH1 campaign offers users an exclusive trailer for the new Basketball Wives series and a link to the show’s Facebook page.

Users can tap their devices on poster sites, which are situated on bus shelters around the cities of New York and Los Angeles.

Each site has a pre-programmed NFC chip affixed to the rear of the poster that transfers the content immediately to handsets that tap the poster.

“The handset manufacturers for one will start to use NFC as part of their selling propositions for new smartphones and by having smart posters in situ we will be able to raise awareness,” Mr. Garner said.

“There is certainly an education piece that needs to be done with consumers and Proxama is working with all stakeholders to help them articulate the power of NFC and getting them to start running pilots to understand how it all works,” he said.

Retailer advantage
Proxama believes that for advertisers, retailers and TV networks, NFC campaigns offer a valuable new consumer gateway as each poster site effectively becomes a new retail outlet.

Via the NFC-enabled posters, advertisers can gain additional data, such as location data and shopping history.

“Proxama also works with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in campaigns,” Mr. Garner said. “The blending of NFC with these two other technologies is key to making mobile campaigns even more powerful.

“We are currently running a couple of campaigns like this that we will be able to talk to you about soon,” he said.

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York