When it comes to using mobile to drive consumer engagement for brands, much of the attention to date has concerned text messaging or 2D bar codes such as quick response (QR) codes. It’s time for us to start paying attention to an up-and-coming technology, Near Field Communications (NFC). NFC is set of technology standards designed to enable short-range, "contactless" communication among phones, as well as other types of targets. Very few of today’s smartphones include embedded NFC technology, and this is limiting its use at this time. Nevertheless, this is expected to change over the next couple of years as more phones with the technology become available and marketers look to integrate NFC into their marketing efforts. According to analyst firm Berg Insight, 100 million smartphone models equipped with NFC technology were sold during 2012. During 2011, this figure was only about 30 million. The firm also predicts that total global sales of NFC-enabled phones will reach 700 million by 2016.

Companies such as Google and Isis are using NFC technology to enable mobile payments. Specifically, Google released its Galaxy Nexus, an NFC-enabled smartphone that is a formidable Android-based competitor to Apple's iPhone (which, by the way, does not support NFC at this time). As the market expands, NFC may become a de facto standard for smartphones, just as Bluetooth is common in the majority of phones today.

There are plenty of opportunities with NFC, including more straightforward device pairing among mobile devices and peripherals, instant payments tied to your preferred credit card account, and of course, marketing and advertising. Right now, mobile barcodes are the primary response mechanism in the mobile channel, and they are typically displayed as QR codes. You see these everywhere now—in magazines, on direct mail, on billboards, and even on TV. Because QR codes involve very few barriers and costs, they lend themselves well to mass-adoption by marketers and advertisers... even if they are poorly executed. On the audience side, consumers only need a smartphone with a camera and a code-scanning app to interact with these codes. Whether the actual experience is a positive one remains open for debate.