America’s First NFC-Powered Magazine Ad

Quad/Graphics and WIRED Magazine team up to creates America’s first mass-produced Near Field Communication (NFC) magazine ad. In the April issue of WIRED Magazine an ad with an NFC tag is able to launch a mobile site when tapped by an NFC-enabled Android smartphone. NFC chips have been used in smartcard and other applications, but the new advertisement is the first time the micro-chip technology has been used in an American magazine on a large scale.

“This is a landmark development in the continued redefinition of print and the ways print can be married to innovative technologies to drive greater reader engagement and response,” says Joel Quadracci, Chairman, President & CEO of Quad/Graphics. “WIRED is all about the future and how ideas and innovation are changing our world, and we see NFC changing how magazines and their advertisers will interact with readers.”

NFC technology has the potential to change the way we interact with printed materials, as more NFC-enabled smartphones come onto the market, advertisers will increasingly develop new ways to leverage the unique characteristics of NFC.

“We now have the ability to help publishers and their advertisers create interactive and highly personalized campaigns that simply require a reader or recipient to place their smartphone on or near the ad to activate,” Chris Pryor, Executive Director of Quad/Graphics Media Solutions said.

As one of the first NFC advertisements it remains to be seen if this will be the next wave of print technology in advertisement, marking Quad Graphics and Wired as pioneers in the technology, or just another option in the crowded field of making print interactive.