Diageo, through its well-known Guinness brand, has developed an interesting and industry-first use for near field communication (NFC) technology – bonk your phone to the tap, and be in with a chance of winning a pint.
In a forward-thinking move the new technology has been activated in the entire estate of new Guinness founts installed in outlets across the UK and Ireland, suggesting there’s a lot more to come from Guinness in this regard. Guinness has already fitted 11,442 new founts in outlets in the UK, with a further 53,000 single and dual founts to be installed by 2015. In Ireland, 2,800 outlets have already received the new founts, with a further 12,155 outlets to receive them by 2015.
Stonegate Pub Group outlets in the UK are the first to trial the new marketing tool, which will run in 20 outlets until the end of August. While waiting for your pint to settle, simple bonk your phone on the Guinness harp, fill out a quick registration page and, if you’re a bit lucky, the pint will be on the house.
Nick Britton, Marketing Manager for Guinness Western Europe at Diageo, said “Guinness is committed to using innovation to develop new marketing tools that will excite consumers and drive valuable sales for our customers. The new NFC activity is a prime example of this, and shows how we have implemented the latest technology in our founts, to keep our audience engaged whilst rewarding them with offers, vouchers competitions and content.”
Guinness is working with Proxama, an NFC mobile commerce company, to utilise their TapPoint platform in powering the NFC infrastructure and enabling Guinness to deliver targeted NFC campaigns.
Miles Quitmann, Managing Director at Proxama, said “NFC technology in smartphones is starting to play a key role in how brands and consumers engage. Guinness is leading the field with NFC as a brand engagement technology- the first drinks brand to market with the technology and at scale.”
The marketing initiative is an interesting one and potentially points a way forward for NFC which, while much lauded as a tool to a more interactive world, has generally until now gone as far as expensive business cards and proof of concept products.
