NFC and QR drive consumer engagement for Google billboard

A new advertising campaign for for Google's Play app store for Android employs wireless near-field communications (NFC) technology and QR codes to get consumers to engage with content from billboards in non-traditional ways.

The campaign, which was rolled out by oOh! Media, allows travellers at Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane domestic airports to select and interact with content from digital billboards and then pay to download it directly onto their Android smartphone using oOh!’s free airport Wi-Fi.

People tap or scan the side of the billboard using either NFC or QR and the content appears on their mobile device's screen. For example, a consumer might see a book they are interested in reading on a Google Play billboard advertisement at an airport and use a QR code to directly download it onto their device.

“We wanted the campaign to be rewarding, interactive and truly mobile. We wanted this to be at a moment where consumption of entertainment content was top of mind and the airport environment delivered on all of these elements,” said Jenn Brown, Phd communications planning director on the Google Account.

“Already the campaign has achieved over 2000 interactions, which exceeds any of the ‘trial’ OOH and NFC campaign engagement metrics that we have seen globally.”

Warwick Denby, oOh!’s group director – business strategy, said it's a world first and an example of how online and billboards can work together, and how smartphones “can drive engagement and enable consumers to connect and transact with the brand online – immediately”.

"We believe this signals the start of something really remarkable for how companies market to the consumer and what is great is that this digital innovation is being driven out of Australia.”

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