Contactless stickers & e-wallet to enhance magazine marketing at point of sale

Antwerp, 16 December 2010 - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris & NYSE: ALU) announces today an innovative trial with Sanoma Magazines, in which buyers of the magazine Humo can make use of contactless payment. Together with customer relationship agency Proximity BBDO, the trial for magazine marketing is set up at several points of sales.

Humo-magazine readers can buy a prepaid NFC (Near Field Communication) sticker for their mobile phone for 24 euro which gives them access to 12 instead of 10 magazines. The user has to hold the sticker in front of a contactless reader at the point of sales in order to pay for the magazine.

Readers of Flair magazine who ask for a sticker when buying their magazine and who register online, earn loyalty points with each purchase of the magazine and receive a gift after 4 purchases. They also get an SMS-update if they haven’t bought Flair yet that week. The sticker can also be activated for contactless payment so that users are able to buy other items at the press shops via one touch.

The test project runs with 7 newspaper stores in and around the city of Antwerp where contactless reading devices for the stickers are installed. About 700 readers of Flair and Humo will be part of the trial project.

Readers’ loyalty and information about the readers’ habits

“The trial and the new technology it uses allow Sanoma Magazines to gain better insights into the purchase habits of readers who don’t own a subscription, and to build up a much more intimate reader loyalty” says Sanoma Magazines. There are also advantages for the point of sales, as they win from the increased reader’s loyalty.

Contactless technology and e-wallet

The technology behind this trial is supplied by Alcatel-Lucent for the payment vouchers, loyalty points and contactless payment. Proximity BBDO takes care of the integration with the CRM-system.

“This project is a nice example of the possibilities offered by the e-wallet,” says Anthony Belpaire, general manager of Alcatel-Lucent’s Mobile Wallet Service. “In the future ever more payments will be done electronically and will be completely integrated with loyalty programs.”