Proxama partners Smartrac

The partnership is expected to work with consumer-facing brands and agencies from early 2013. Both companies have been advocating the use of NFC on mobile phones as an effective way for brands to engage with their customers.

Smartrac is keen to build upon its customers' interest in NFC by demonstrating the value of the technology globally. Proxama has already run numerous NFC marketing campaigns using its TapPoint online campaign platform and voucher management system, which enables brands, retailers, agencies and media owners to create content for NFC marketing campaigns and then monitor the results in "real time". The two companies have teamed up to produce demos that will illustrate the potential uses for NFC and consumer marketing and brand engagement.

Pilot NFC consumer marketing campaigns

Commenting on the agreement, Miles Quitmann, the MD of Proxama said: "Over the last 12 months we have delivered a number of pilot NFC consumer marketing campaigns for brands such as Nokia, Orange, 20th Century Fox and VH-1. By linking up with Smartrac, we are now in a position to develop and deliver large-scale campaigns that will provide brands with the very latest in customer-engagement techniques. Our campaigns will enable brands to offer a number of different products to their customers, including sales incentives such as vouchers or loyalty cards; exclusive content such as film trailers or video guides; or provide links to social media for further interaction. With our TapPoint NFC campaign management platform, we believe we have the perfect blend of experience and technology to enable brands to get one step ahead in the mobile market sphere."

Building the bridge

"Adoption of NFC technology is accelerating based on services focused on digital engagement with consumers, gaming, content provisioning, and the like," said Ivan Plajh, the head of business line mobile and smart media of Smartrac. "Proxama's expertise and technology in the areas of tag management cloud services, secure mobile payment solutions, and apps for various smartphones is ideally extending our wide NFC Tag product range. Together, we are building the bridge not only between the physical and the online world, but also between various NFC non-payment use cases and mobile payment. At Smartrac we are convinced that this is the best way to carry this technology into the future."