No secret I am a big fan of NFC. I first mentioned it on the blog more than a year ago. Here is how one event has made the best use of this technology to date.
The event in question is The Manhattan Cocktail Classic, hat tip to Techcrunch.
The protagonist is Tagstand. A company I already covered and that is making waves in the event industry.
Tagstand together with Tasting Tables and the agency ClearHart Digital set up a system of readers and bracelets to interact offline with bits and pieces of the event. You sync your bracelet with your Twitter or Facebook profile and voila, you’re set.
Let’s have a look at what they did…
Use NFC to Like Stuff
During the event guests could sample a number of cocktails. By swiping the bracelet on the reader at the bar they could keep track of the drinks they liked and get personalised recipes.
Guests could also like dresses displayed at the event by swiping the bracelet above the waist of some male models walking around the venue.
Make it easy for guest to like stuff. Place a lot of readers around the room. Make it fun (swiping on someone’s dress is fun!). Personalize the goody.
Use NFC to Enter Competitions
Virgin Atlantic sponsored the event. Guests could tap to like them on Facebook automatically entering a competition to win a round-trip to London, accommodation and a 250$ to spend on clothes, provided by another sponsor.
Quick and dirty competitions are a great use of NFC. Make it easy to enter. Come up with a cool prize.
Use NFC to Check in
Guests could use their bracelet to check into Facebook Places. Tagstand did it with Foursquare with no bracelet but with NFC enabled mobiles.
NFC is perfect for check-ins, check-ins are important to your event. Maximise the placement of readers and invite guests to check in.
Use NFC to Send Pics from Photo Boots
Photo Boots are living a new life since Facebook came along. At Manhattan Cocktail Classic you could promptly upload your pics to your Facebook account.
All the weight lifting is done on the backend. Bracelet syncing is the only requirement.
Your guests love pics and Facebook. Use NFC and photo boots to allow them to upload instantly.
Use NFC to Make Your Sponsors Happy
All of the above examples involved making guests interact but mostly made sponsors extremely happy. Tagstand and ClearHart Digital excelled in finding ways to make the sponsorship experience rich and interactive.
This is a giant leap from placing a logo on a brochure. This is taking event sponsorship and marketing to the next level.
Use NFC to make the sponsorship experience fun, engaging and interactive pleasing your guests and sponsors.
In Conclusion
I was amazed reading what Manhattan Cocktail Classic put together. To date this is the best case study for the use of NFC for event production and marketing.
More planners should look into using NFC to make their event more interactive. On the same page, more brands should ask event professionals to use this technology for more engaging sponsorships.
Have you seen any other cool use of NFC? Share it in the comments.