Near field what?

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a form of short-range wireless technology that allows two separate devices to ‘talk’ to one another; it is a bit like Bluetooth but far more evolved. If like me, you have had the experience (often painful) of trying to share photos and other media with friends via Bluetooth, NFC will come as a breath of fresh air. First off, NFC doesn’t require two devices to be paired together in order to create a connection. It also connects considerably faster (in less than 1/10 of a second), is far less prone to interference and consumes markedly less power than Bluetooth. NFC provides a far cleaner and efficient way for wireless communication to take place, and hence makes the user experience seamless and more autonomous.

As a technology however, it is not actually that new, and in all likelihood probably something you have already been using for a few years. If you live in London and use public transport, the Oyster Card is an example of something that uses NFC. If you have an NFC enabled credit or debit card from your bank, you might have used it to buy your morning Cappuccino at Pret A Manger. More recently, if you happen to own an NFC enabled Samsung ‘Tocco’ from Orange, you can pay for that Cappuccino with a simple swipe of your phone.  It is this, the combination of NFC and mobile phones, which is where things get interesting.

Mobile is the future of everything. At least, that is what Google’s ex-CEO Eric Schmidt thinks, and he is probably right. Smartphone penetration is as high as it has ever been, and nothing to indicate that this trend is going anywhere but upwards. Moreover, compared with other connected mobile devices, such as tablets and eReaders, people are using their Smartphones more regularly, across more environments and for more purposes. The idea of Smartphones utilising NFC technology therefore makes a lot of sense, and consequently there are interesting implications for a whole host of occasions where people use their Smartphones…beyond buying milky coffee.

Smartphones are powerful tools in maintaining an ‘always-on’ lifestyle, which we seem to be so readily embracing nowadays. They allow us to connect to people, services and brands in incredibly diverse and easy ways. However, this is all in the digital domain. As much as there is an ‘app for this’ and an ‘app for that’, there is little in the way in the existing Smartphone world that bridges on and offline experiences in particularly efficient or compelling means. There are some, but in my opinion, they only scratch the surface of what integrated experience should be like.

Current means of connecting online and offline experiences

Take Quick Response (QR) Codes for example. QR codes have been used for several years, and are typically integrated with outdoor media, or anywhere where there is a surface that can have a code printed on it. They are handy in terms of migrating consumers in the direction of specific information, or delivering unique content on their mobile phones. The desired effect is to ultimately create a richer experience with that media. However if brands ever want to create a truly interactive, and more importantly, personalised experience, a QR code is insufficient. They are by their very nature a one-way exercise in interactivity. In most cases, anyone that interacts with a QR code ends up in the same place, doing the same thing as everyone else. It’s a posh bar code, and a fairly ugly one at that…despite Betfair’s interesting use of media recently!

Location based services such as Foursquare and Scvngr have been successful in bridging the gap between online social networking and offline locations via the process of ‘checking in’ to places using GPRS technologies. By checking-in to places using your Smartphone, users collect virtual badges and compete against each other for achievements. At its heart, the underlying process of Foursquare (and Scvngr to an extent) is one of competition. No surprises then that this can be quite motivating; being competitive is a very powerful human trait. Brands and other businesses have used this game-like mechanic to their advantage by offering users unique rewards upon completing achievements, or gaining the most check-ins to certain venues. Furthermore, because of their integration with social networks, the ‘check-in and achievement’ process advertises, and hence advocates your every move to peers in your network. Big brands have been quick to implement Foursquare in a variety of means. Last year GAP awarded anyone who checked-in to one of their stores 25% off their bill over a 24-hour period. Starbucks have also ventured in using location-based services to deliver unique rewards to customers, depending on their engagement with the brand.

For an ‘always-on’ consumer Foursquare offers brands interesting and quite far-reaching opportunities to connect and engage with their market. However, asides from bridging the gap between online and offline experiences via a game mechanic, I don’t feel that there is anything particularly revolutionary about Foursquare. Whilst there clearly can be short term transactional gains for brands using Foursquare, over-reliance on it as something that adds ‘reward’, particularly in terms of simple behaviours and transactions, can commoditise an experience. What is it about Foursquare that lends itself as a differentiating and powerful brand-building tool? I am yet to be convinced.

However, the biggest drawback of QR codes (and to a lesser extent current Location based services) is that they are platforms that don’t truly tap into the depth of the relationship between a brand and its consumer. As a team that works exclusively in understanding the effectiveness of brand experiences (both online and offline), we strongly feel that the future of experience marketing is as much about the brand interacting and adapting to you as it is about you interacting with the brand. Experiential 2.0, if you will. Brands don’t just need to be nimble and agile in a digital era; brands need to be intelligent too. For brands to be intelligent, they need data.

Content Data is king

Your Smartphone has the potential to hold a phenomenal amount of information about you. Furthermore, because of our fondness and reliance on social systems (such as Facebook), this means that this information is organised, contextualised and from a brands perspective, considerably more useable. Therefore, we are not just talking about simple demographics. Given the chance, information about where you live, what brands you like,  who your friends are,  what brands they like, where you go out, what you spend your money on… the list of, ‘things-about-you-and-the-world-you-live-in’ is potentially limitless. This wealth of social data is something that Facebook has been eagerly capitalising on for a few years with their Open Graph, which has in many ways made the Internet more personalised and social as an experience. Furthermore, with Google+ offering a significant step forwards in how we structure and manage our social connections, the future of the social web is looking even more sophisticated, and ultimately more useable for marketers.

The combination of rich social data, with two-way seamless experience technologies, such as NFC have the potential to provide offline experiences that are completely personalised, just like what people are experiencing online. An example of its application could be in retail:

Imagine you are going shopping in a large department store. You don’t have a clue where to start because there’s just too many shops. Instead of going through the detailed department store guide choosing all the shops that you might be interested in, you simply swipe your phone across a NFC terminal. And on the basis of previous websites you’ve visited on your phone’s browser, or what brands you happen to like on Facebook, the terminal recommends stores that might be of interest to you. It might even notice that you have a friend or family member’s birthday soon and suggests stores and brands that they like.

Clearly there will be ongoing, and increasingly heated debates concerning how our information is going to be accessible to brands and services. The more we find ourselves committing our lives to shared networks, privacy and other issues surrounding user data management are going to be the biggest hurdles for all industries that want to connect with people in the online space. However if you recall, there was once a time when people thought the idea of doing your day-to-day banking online was unthinkable. Can you imagine doing it any other way now?

“A few short years ago, we were warned not to put our real names on the Web. Today, every site has a share button, and we freely track our own activities for all to see. Each of those acts leaves a crumb of data; take away our Smartphones, and we feel like we’ve had a digital stroke, leaving us without faculties we otherwise take for granted”

A great quote from cyber-anthropologist Amber Case that smartly summarises where I think we’re heading.