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Tetherball Tests New RFID Mobile Marketing Platform

Posted by Justin on Jun 10, 2009 in In The News, Marketing Strategy, Mobile 2.0, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Software, Predictions, SMS / Text

Tetherball, a mobile solutions company specializing in “mobile loyalty and rewards,” is testing a new RFID mobile marketing platform with Dairy Queen in the US that aims to combine mobile coupon solutions with location-based marketing and customer loyalty- all in one integrated platform.  

Tetherball’s approach aims at helping clients “tether” their brand to target audiences by identifying what their customers want and delivering mobile campaigns that interact with permission-based mobile coupons, mobile rewards, mobile sweepstakes and mobile notifications.  The new RFID platform works by integrating traditional marketing methods, such as in-store advertising, in hopes that customers are engaged to sign up for mobile loyalty rewards programs offering promotional discounts.  Upon joining, customers are given a “Tetherball Tag,” a tiny RFID chip that is affixed to their mobile phones, which uniquely identifies them through Tetherball’s platform.

Tetherball clients are then able to send offers to their customers via standard text messaging.  Offers are redeemed electronically using existing in-store RFID point-of-sale terminals or stand-alone RFID kiosks provided by Tetherball.  The greatest asset of the platform is the fact that the RFID-based solution works on any mobile phone and allows clients to measure the performance of their campaigns via real time validation and reporting.
The only problem I see, is the fact that users must attach an RFID chip to their mobile devices.  This is something that most users won’t want to take the time to do, and seems completely unnecessary for a simple customer loyalty solution.  The idea is good, and the benefits for the client are apparent, it just seems there’s to much infrastructure required.  Mobile campaigns work the best when the end-user doesn’t have to do much.  The theory of RFID is good, it just doesn’t make sense in this context, yet.
 

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  1. cameron | Jun 11, 2009 | Reply

    worth checking this out as well as any other promotional company’s that we can find – may be a helpful way of getting oin-going loyalty if their is a structured reward system in place.

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