NFC Taxis hit multiple US cities with NBC & VeriFone

NFC Taxis hit multiple US cities with NBC & VeriFone as they partner for NFC based out-of-home marketing using NBC and Universal content

NBCUniversal has announced that along with VeriFone, it intends to advertise and interact with consumers in captive out-of-home locations starting with NFC taxis in multiple US cities. Consumers can expect to gain access to NBC’s news, information and entertainment programming in more than 12,000 taxi cabs as well as at thousands of gas stations which started a couple of days ago. NBC also plans to use NFC marketing on other digital out-of-home platforms in the future.

Marketing to captive audiences using NFC is gearing up to be big business. Whether you are standing in line at a store, waiting to catch a bus or sitting in the back of a taxi, marketers are getting set up to extend their reach to consumers using entertainment and engaging content. However, ads and entertainment are just the start of the plans and that is where VeriFone comes in. The agreement Between NBC and VeriFone is said to provide advertisers unmatched capabilities to engage consumers interactively through e-commerce, couponing and micro sites. Purchase, or sign up for a coupon with every ad you see using your NFC smartphone is the message and NBC is using its content in a new innovative way that transcends the airwaves for an ad revenue generation platform.

“NBCUniversal is the perfect strategic fit for us as we extend our payment-enabled media platform beyond TaxiTV into other verticals, including our existing client base of over 60,000 gas stations and more than one million retail installations,” said Bud Waller, Vice Chairman of VeriFone. “We have worked with the NBC-owned stations for the last two years and believe their superior sales performance and innovative programming of new consumer experiences will benefit advertisers and consumers.”

Now all VeriFone and NBC need is for there to be more NFC smartphones to be released and for Isis member MNOs to relax restrictions, which could hold back the partnership’s success.

“With VeriFone, we have chosen to partner with the industry leader to deliver best-in-class content and our strong sales capabilities to one of the nation’s largest collection of taxis and gas stations,” said Greg Scholl, President of Local Integrated Media for NBC Owned Television Stations. “We are excited about future growth prospects as VeriFone continues to innovate its products and push into new digital out-of-home sectors.”

The NFC mobile wallet wars are not the only battle for control we will see in 2012 as VeriFone and NBC strike the first deal for captive NFC marketing

While the NFC wallet wars loom, another battle is starting up that is less aggressive than the NFC mobile wallet conflict, but the ownership of out-of-home furniture inventory is gaining traction. Expect to see multiple platforms and agreements happen this year as larger ad providers make deals off line with captive audiences locations that use NFC for payments. What is interesting is that Google has invested a lot of money into Google Offers and yet has not moved towards securing captive audience locations for out-of-home NFC marketing despite having the content, NFC technology, ad serving platform and a current partnership with VeriFone and ViVOtech through its Google Wallet.

At launch, the collaboration will cover taxis in nine markets, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Miami, and some gas stations, with additional expansion planned. VeriFone also have a lot to offer to this partnership beyond its software and hardware. VeriFone’s recent upgrade to its entire fleet of 6,800 NFC-enabled New York taxis – New York’s largest taxi fleet under one digital out-of-home provider.

Thanks to VeriFone that’s a lot of eyeballs on ads in just one city and NBC intends to fix those eyeballs on local news and weather updates from NBC 4 New York and content from NBC Sports Group, NBC News, NBC’s primetime and late-night offerings as well as several of its cable networks and Universal Pictures. The partnership between NBC and VeriFone is for the moment saying that the downloading of interactive content to their NFC smartphones is a future capability that they intend to use.

The company said, “Advertisers will also have the ability to integrate both mobile and social features into their campaigns, track user engagement and enable riders to select from a range of coupons and print them out on new, wider receipts for future redemption. Additionally, they will be able to select the specific daypart or geography they are interested in targeting. Other future enhancements are planned.” This tells us that direct NFC payment purchases can be expected and as VeriFone broadens its inventory of out-of-home furniture. We see a new business model forming for the traditionally hardware focused Californian firm that transcends it beyond payments.

This can also been seen with VeriFone’s recent acquisition of Point, over in Europe where e-commerce starts to become a factor the firm is interested in. NFC marketing is just getting started. The ownership of captive out-of-home furniture outside of bus shelters and billboards is the next big area we expect to see investment in. Now let’s see what VeriFone and NBC do with this new NFC interactive platform and what advertisers it attracts.