Guinness founts first to use NFC technology

Diageo's Irish stout Guinness has become the first brand to introduce near field communication (NFC) technology in the on-trade.

By tapping their Smartphone against the harp on the newly installed ‘magic behind the gates’ Guinness founts, consumers can find out if they have won a complimentary pint of Guinness.

The technology is to be applied to all new Guinness founts installed in outlets across the UK and Ireland. In the UK, 11,442 have already been fitted and a further 53,000 single and dual founts will be installed by 2015. In Ireland, 2,800 outlets have the new founts and a further 12,155 will  receive them by 2015.

Guinness is working with Proxama, a NFC mobile commerce company that connects the physical and digital worlds via its TapPoint platform.

Miles Quitmann, MD at Proxama, comments: “NFC technology in smartphones is starting to play a key role in how brands and consumers engage. Guinness is leading the field with NFC as a brand engagement technology as the first drinks brand to market with the technology and at scale. Deploying the technology to the whole Guinness estate demonstrates how influential Diageo sees NFC in supporting mobile marketing and consumer engagement.

"Brands get very few opportunities to have meaningful one-to-one interactions with their consumers; NFC is changing this by allowing brands to interact with consumers that have proactively chosen to engage with them.”

Nick Britton, marketing manager for Guinness western Europe says: “Guinness is committed to using innovation to develop new marketing tools that will excite consumers and drive valuable sales for our customers. The new NFC activity is a prime example of this and shows how we have implemented the latest technology in our founts to keep our audience engaged while rewarding them with offers, vouchers competitions and content.”

5 August 2013 - Felicity Murray