In last week’s column, I reviewed near field communications (NFC). This is a hot new trend that has the potential to make direct mail, signage, and packaging an integral part of the interactive cross-media marketing mix. Marketers can deliver content via an embedded NFC chip that enables wireless communication when a user touches a smartphone or mobile device to a piece of marketing collateral or brings the device into close proximity with an NFC tag.

First introduced nearly a decade ago, NFC technology is entering the consumer mass market. Statistics indicate that hundreds of millions of smartphones and portable personal information devices will be NFC-enabled in the near future, creating a tremendous opportunity for integration with print applications. It is time for us to explore the market potential and provide examples of the value-added applications in the industry. This article provides examples of how NFC might take hold in tomorrow’s market.

Finland-based VTT Technical Research Centre recently developed an NFC-based application that can help visually impaired people to obtain medical information from a package without physically reading the content. Individuals can use their mobile phones to touch the info code on the packaging. NFC technology can then acquire brief information about the package and feed it into the application. The project, named "HearMeFeelMe," was jointly developed by VTT, TopTunniste (Finland), Tecnalia (Spain), and Demokritos (Greece).