NFC Marketing trifecta, NFC World Alliance
FeaturePosted by Seth Planck
September 08th, 2011 at 10:28 AM Filed Under Latest News, Press Release
NFC Marketing trifecta formed as Proxama, Tapit and BlueBite come together for an NFC World Alliance
The newly formed NFC World Alliance will cover the Asia-Pacific region, America’s region and the EMEA region for NFC marketing
An Englishman, an Australian and an American… Oh you’ve heard that one. Rather than a joke you may be interested in some NFC marketing news then. Well, Proxama, the English power house that helped Nokia, BlueBite, the American mobile marketers who you will remember were part of the New York VH1 show NFC marketing campaign, and the new kid on the block, Australian firm Tapit, have got together to form an NFC marketing alliance. The three companies are calling this collaboration the NFC World Alliance, and arguably these three companies are the biggest NFC marketing players in their respective markets. By forging a collaboration, they have now made up the first premier NFC marketing trifecta on the face of the Earth.
We have mentioned before that a couple of the NFC Rumors’ team are career marketers. We have consulted for many fortune 500 companies and have developed and deployed campaigns for thousands of organizations. The other members of our team are developers and linear types who worry about databases, coding, metrics and looking after clients. We have worked with WOMM, viral marketing, psychological marketing, social media and the list goes on. In summary, we love marketing.
The only reason we bring that up is because we know quality marketing firms when we see them and all three of the above companies are top notch. In NFC marketing there is no such thing as firms with an abundance of experience, but Proxama, BlueBite and Tapit have launched successful campaigns and are the nearest thing we have to authoritative experts in NFC marketing at this time.
The problem with most marketing agencies is they are either run by creative types who can’t meet timelines, budgets or stay on plan, or are they run by linear folk who have the business case, campaign goals and metrics down to a fine art and then don’t have a creative bone in their bodies. Blending the creative with the linear aspects of personalities and getting them to work well with each is other is like herding cats, and all three companies have achieved just that.
An issue that NFC has faced when it comes to marketing is that it has a global nature, because in simplistic terms the NFC Forum’s standards are the same world over. However, around the world there are different localities and marketing needs, different MNOs that have different structures and rules of the data that goes over their networks. When you add to that the nature of brand management over multiple agencies and convergence of key metrics and ROI and success indicators as a global company, you find yourself with a logistical nightmare.
Different regions will require different messaging to align with localities, but any brand manager knows the core branding messages need to remain focused and congruent. If you are attempting to release a well honed NFC marketing campaign globally having partners that use each others facilities and who work well with each other can make a campaign more successful.
Three NFC marketing companies, one global NFC marketing force with varied experience and skills, NFC World Alliance
We have been following each of these companies closely and whereas the press release below doesn’t go into too much detail about how they are going to come together, we can imagine how this relationship will work. Most of the time agencies don’t play well with others. A typical problem faced by agencies is a level of control because most marketers and developers are control freaks.
A collaboration that uses the same technology and which can share BlueBite’s mTag system and Proxama’s NFC payments experience and Tapit’s newly found reach in the Asia-Pacific region and apparent penchant for out-of-home NFC marketing that all three firms share, you have a power house of NFC marketing that can reach across the globe using social media, loyalty campaigns and tie into global payment systems like Visa and MasterCard’s partner networks.
Jamie Conyngham, CEO of Tapit, said, “There are many benefits of the alliance such as rapid information sharing between the three members in relation to advances in NFC technology and the application of it globally when connecting brands to their customers”
Mikhail Damiani, CEO and Co-Founder of Blue Bite, says, “We are excited to be a part of this alliance as it will give us the ability to both improve the current NFC experience for our audience in the U.S., as well as expand the success of our campaigns for clients across the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions.”
Miles Quitmann, Managing Director of Proxama, says, “NFC is an excellent example of disruptive technology that delivers measurable benefits to both consumers and the brands employing it. For many years now Proxama has been at the forefront of building and deploying NFC mobile wallet payment and marketing solutions in Europe, so we are really excited to be joining forces with our partners in the US and Asia-Pacific to extend the global reach of NFC.”
Although the companies have been practicing NFC marketing for a while, for us the NFC marketing industry just hit critical exposure and became a real option for global brands. We will follow the NFC World Alliance and bring you more news as we have it.
Tapit, Blue Bite and Proxama announce first global NFC alliance of its kind.
September 8th, 2011, Sydney, Australia: In a statement that truly confirms the global reach of NFC (Near-Field-Communication) as a powerful NFC World Alliance technology for location-based mobile interaction, three organizations leading its development as a mainstream mobile marketing tool across the globe have joined forces to form the “NFC World Alliance”.
The collaboration, composed of Tapit (Asia-Pacific region), Blue Bite (America’s region) and Proxama (EMEA region) has been formed to create an NFC marketing efficient and trusted network of NFC specialists helping brands NFC World Alliance across the world to better connect with their target audiences. The three companies have already completed NFC marketing numerous successful marketing campaigns demonstrating the effectiveness of NFC for major global clients in their respective markets, and plan toNFC World Alliance bring their deployment experience, technological expertise and strategic partnerships to both NFC marketing consumers and brands worldwide.
Using NFC as the primary enabler, the Alliance has a vision to revolutionize the way people use their mobile phones by NFC marketing simplifying the delivery of content and enhancing the interaction with the physical world around them. While past campaigns have focused on the exchange of information, special offers and content between the NFC marketing brands and consumers, future uses will include more integration with social media and the ability to make NFC marketing purchases at virtually any Out-Of-Home media asset.
Jamie Conyngham CEO of Tapit said “There are NFC marketing many benefits of the alliance such as rapid information sharing between the three members in relation to advances in NFC technology and the NFC World Alliance application of it globally when connecting brands to their customers”. Tapit recently closed its Angel Investment Round via Sydney Angels in an impressive 22 calendar days, further validating the company’s vision and unique approach. Tapit has already completed four NFC enabled campaigns with the global OOH leader JC Decaux. In a campaign for the NFC World Alliance prime time TV series the “The Renovators” users were NFC marketing encouraged to tapit to download a ringtone. Advertising for Sydney’s top radio station “Nova FM” enabled users to tapit to stream radio, and in a promotion for The QVB, one of central Sydney’s premier shopping centres, people were encouraged to NFC marketing tapit to go in the draw to win a shopping spree.
Blue Bite has also seen great success with the mTAG™ platform it NFC marketing launched earlier this year, and has already completed campaigns for big names such as Hotels.com, TNT and The New York Times. Mikhail Damiani, CEO and Co-Founder of Blue Bite says, “We are excited to be a part of this alliance as it will give us the ability to both improve the current NFC experience for our audience in the U.S., as well as expand the success of our campaigns for clients across the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions.”
Earlier this year, Proxama deployed the first NFC campaign of its kind in the U.K. for the new X-Men movie working with out-of-home media specialists Posterscope and JCDecaux. It has subsequently built upon that success with its recent US advertising campaign for the launch of the NFC marketing latest season of VH-1’s Basketball Wives TV programme. Miles Quitmann, Managing Director of Proxama, says “NFC is an excellent example of disruptive technology that delivers measurable benefits to both consumers and the brands employing it. For many years now Proxama has been at the NFC marketing forefront of building and deploying NFC mobile wallet payment and marketing solutions in Europe, so we are really excited to be joining NFC Marketing forces with our NFC marketing partners in the US and Asia-Pacific to extend the global reach of NFC.”
About Tapit (http://www.tapit.com.au) – Tapit was founded in March 2011 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. It’s vision is to revolutionise the way people use their mobile phones by simplifying the delivery of content using NFC as the enabler. Tapit works with innovative agencies, brands, handset manufacturers and carriers to bring this vision to life. Follow the latest updates and developments on Facebook and Twitter.
About Blue Bite (http://www.bluebite.com/) – Blue Bite is a leading mobile-marketing solutions NFC marketing provider utilizing a targeted, location-based approach to reach captive audiences on their personal mobile devices. Blue Bite currently has the largest proximity marketing network in the U.S. with over 1,000 locations in the top DMAs, capable of delivering over 30 million on-screen impressions and 300,000 unique mobile downloads per month. Blue Bite has NFC marketing partnered with many of the leading Out-of-Home NFC marketing Companies in the U.S. and prides itself on creating an interactive two-way medium by enabling consumers to connect with digital and traditional media via the mobile phone. For more information, please visit www.theMTAG.com
About Proxama (http://www.proxama.com/) – Proxama is Europe’s leading provider of NFC mobile wallet and proximity marketing solutions. Last year MasterCard and Proxama NFC marketing launched Europe’s first prepaid NFC payment solution for mobile phones. Proxama has also NFC marketing signed a global licensing deal with Nokia for its unique TagCenter application that enables Nokia NFC phone users to get instant, media-rich NFC marketing brand experiences from NFC data tags placed on posters, product packaging and point-of–sale displays.
NFC marketing, NFC World Alliance