Feature
Quick download
27 June 2011
Near Field Communications
What is it?
Near Field Communications (NFC) is a short-range wireless technology that enables nearby devices to communicate with one another. It is designed to make it easier to carry out transactions and exchange digital content. It is currently mostly used in mobile phones.
Who’s it for?
It has potential to become a standard in the consumer and business world. As an information source, it can aid consumer life at every point, from offering travel information at a kiosk to being used as electronic car keys.
Why should you care?
For brands, NFC offers a new point of contact with consumers and is now integrated in Samsung and Android handsets with Apple likely to follow. Coca-Cola Israel used NFC at its Village Amusement Park to allow visitors to automatically ‘like’ activities by swiping wristbands at points around the park.
What’s the potential?
It’s easy to over-hype any new technology, but NFC has an advantage thanks to its simple implementation and the backing of major phone developers. It looks set to make a swipe or a tap become an established way of interacting with the world around us.
Demand Side Platforms
What is it?
Designed to remove the waste from online ad purchases, Demand Side Platforms (DSP) offer advertisers the chance to target users more efficiently. They work across multiple inventory sources to let advertisers acquire only the impressions that fit well with their target audience.
Who’s it for?
Agencies looking to deliver greater return-on-invetment (ROI) for clients should take notice. DSPs enable agencies to allocate advertiser spend more effectively using an auction model called Real Time Bidding (RTB) to buy online inventory.
Why should you care?
DSPs and RTB offer the opportunity to provide greater ROI. DSPs offer a single interface to manage digital campaigns and connect with most ad targeting data servers. WPP’s GroupM is predicting that they will soon account for 5% of all global adspend, the same as paid-search.
What’s the potential?
Agencies are developing their own in-house DSPs as they look to improve their digital offerings, and they promise to bring search buying efficency to the online display marketplace; which is good news for advertisers.