The new X-Men movie “X-Men First Class” has been advertised around London, UK, using Near Field Communication (NFC) to take mobile users to a trailer or Facebook page via their NFC enabled phones. As far as I know this is the first time that NFC has been used in a public marketing campaign.

But first things first; if you do not know that much about NFC yet, please don’t miss the following video to discover a whole new world of opportunities in your NFC-enabled smartphone…

NFC-enabled smart posters were to be displayed at a dozen locations around central London to promote the new X-Men movie, X-Men First Class, which arrived in UK theatres past 1st June. The film’s tag line, ‘Witness the moment that will change our world’, is apt for this first UK NFC film promotion campaign.

Developed by NFC software application provider Proxama in collaboration with outdoor media specialist Posterscope, outdoor media owner JCDecaux and network operator O2, the poster campaign features an exclusive movie trailer and a link to the film’s Facebook page. Each poster has an NFC tag affixed to its rear, enabling those with NFC phones to connect by tapping their phone to the poster.

For this campaign, Proxama has developed optimized mobile content to ensure that a great brand experience is received by all users. And, via its unique Tag Manager data management tool it is providing the campaign management and reporting, and in-depth analytics. The NFC marketing solution that has resulted from Proxama‘s collaboration with Posterscope and JCDecaux will be suitable for use in outdoor media panels for other advertisers to utilise.

For those of us who have been betting on this technology for yeras, it is really rewarding to see NFC technology coming of age with the first public marketing campaign being launched. NFC offers advertisers greater opportunities to build ‘hyper-local’ promotional campaigns using media-rich, high quality content that can only enhance their relationships with their customers. For advertisers and retailers this development offers a hugely valuable new consumer gateway as each poster site becomes a new retail outlet. Retailers and advertisers will gain additional data about consumers, such as consumer location data and shopping history, which in turn will allow for more targeted advertising and greater accountability.

Now that the three main carriers in Spain have signed an agreement to foster the development and popularization of NFC, let’s see how long we have to wait to see something similar in Madrid…

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Manuel A. Alonso Coto