Tag: nfc mobile technology

Proxoma and Smartrac aim to take NFC marketing to the next level

Proxama, a provider of NFC and mobile marketing technology solutions, has announced its partnership with Smartrac, a developer and manufacturer of RFID transponders and inlays. Through this partnership, the two companies aim to showcase the potential of NFC technology in the marketing sector. The technology has long held promise for advertising, but has seen limited use over the years. NFC is most often used in mobile commerce as a way to facilitate mobile payments from smart phones and tablets.

New NFC marketing services coming to brands in 2013

Through this partnership, Proxama aims to work with several popular brands and advertising agencies beginning in 2013. Proxama believes that these brands and agencies could benefit from the use of NFC technology, as it will provide them with a way to engage consumers in an interactive fashion. Smartrac has been experiencing increasing demand for NFC technology solutions from its customers and is eager to begin developing such solutions.

Proxama leverages experience to provide new services

Proxama already has a wealth of experience in using NFC as a mobile marketing tool. The company is expected to leverage this experience to provide brands with powerful solutions that could produce promising engagement opportunities with consumers. Through its partnership with Smartrac, Proxoma aims to provide retailers, advertisers, and media owners with the tools they need to develop dynamic NFC-based marketing campaigns. While such campaigns have been used by major brands in the past, such as 20th Century Fox, NFC-based marketing can often be a hit-or-miss issue.

Lack of NFC-enabled devices may be problematic for some

In order for consumers to interact with NFC marketing campaigns, they must have an NFC-enabled mobile device. These devices are equipped with NFC chips that can decipher the information contained within NFC-based marketing materials. Currently, these phones are somewhat rare, but device manufacturers are working to remedy this issue. With the scarcity of NFC-enabled mobile devices, it is difficult to say for certain whether NFC marketing will be able to provide brands with the reach they need to connect with mobile consumers.

The marketplace is rocked by the shocking news that a major player has dropped out.

The CEO of VeriFone, Doug Bergeron, has stunned the direct-to-micromerchant mobile payments world with the announcement that it is stepping out of that marketplace following unprofitable results from its Sail service.

The point-of sale provider’s mcommerce news came as a surprise to the majority of the industry.

As VeriFone had dedicated a great deal of last year and much of this year on the promotion of the growth of mobile payments services, the decision that the company has now made to remove itself from that direct-to-micromerchant space has caused many heads to spin. The announcement was made during the most recent quarterly conference call.

The CEO released the mobile payments news that the company is stepping down.

During the call, Bergeron stated that Sail, its own mobile payments service, has been unprofitable. This program had been giving small businesses the ability to use smartphones and tablets to accept transactions through debit and credit cards. He said that “Customer acquisition costs, either through search engines or TV advertising, cannot and will never justify the razor thin margins produced by merchants with infrequent volumes and extremely high attrition.”

The NFC technology community has also been left blinking in surprise, as it had been looking toward that company to propel forward its adoption, particularly after the iPhone 5 was released without its capabilities.

Bergeron described the mobile payments program at VeriFone as a failure and is now causing many of the other players in the industry to take a second look at their own potential for profitability. This is particularly the case after the CEO questioned the ability of the environment to be profitable at all. The company has announced that all of its assets from that space will now be sold off.

He explained that he felt it is possible to see similar thoughts among the competition as their businesses models are shifted toward wallets services. It is his belief that the only mobile payments players who will be able to survive “this fundamentally challenging business model” will be those who are capable of offering micro merchants other services, as well.