JCDecaux converts British town to NFC advertising

All the bus shelters and outdoor advertising sites as well as all the posters in the town of Reading’s main shopping centre are to be NFC-enabled from 5 March, making it the first to be blanketed with NFC advertising.

The town of Reading in the UK’s hi-tech M4 corridor is to become the first to have all its bus shelters and poster sites, as well as sites in the city’s Oracle shopping mall, converted to enable consumers to interact with advertisers via QR codes and NFC tags.

NFC ads go up all over Reading

In all, Reading will have 325 advertising ‘Touchpoints’ from which shoppers will be able to access exclusive video content from DVDs, preview TV shows, get discount vouchers and enter competitions.

The project is being delivered by out-of-home advertising giant JCDecaux — which has already NFC-enabled 240 sites in Australia — in conjunction with outdoor media agency Kinetic Worldwide and technology provider Zappit.

“We couldn’t think of a more perfect place to launch this exciting new service than in the vibrant town of Reading,” says David McEvoy, marketing director at JCDecaux UK. “Our research shows that Reading is one of the most tech-savvy towns in the UK with a higher number of mobile phone and smartphone owners  than the rest of the country. This puts Reading at the forefront of interactivity at bus shelters and so we really hope people will try it out and enjoy accessing the entertainment and special offers available through their smartphone.”

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