We received the award in recognition of the campaign we ran with Nokia for VOX cinemas in UAE. Consumers were able to download vouchers by tapping their Nokia N9 handset against a poster and then redeem at the till against a movie of their choice. The campaign was run in conjunction with Nokia and helped raise awareness for their N9 handset as well as educate consumers on the potential of NFC.

It is fantastic to be recognised by industry peers for the work we are doing and we look forward to seeing many more NFC campaigns announced over the coming year.

For the full story on this years winners, click here.

Chief Executive, Neil Garner, speaks to the BBC about the potential of mobile payment and the security concerns that often cloud its advantages.

We’ve done a lot with NFC marketing recently, the Orange and EAT Quick Tap Treats campaign, NFC Hackathon and more.

It’s time for m-payments to take a turn in the spotlight. Proxama will be on Look East this evening talking about the possibilities of mobile wallets and demonstrating how m-payments can be made. The piece will be broadcast tonight  on BBC1 between 6.30 and 7pm. It can also be caught on Sky 982.

Proxama’s TouchPoint™ platform was opened up to the creative community across the two day event  giving teams the chance to develop an NFC idea that would enhance interaction between consumer and brand. Each team worked long hours, with many working through the night to bring their idea to life.

There were many prizes available including an all-expenses paid trip to BlackBerry World in Orlando, tickets to see Chelsea in the Champions league, Samsung Galaxy tablets, a tour of Google’s office, tickets to see artists at the O2… and Proxama’s prize: a kickstarter fund of £10,000 development time to make the winning idea a commercial reality.

The winner of the kickstarter category was Team Blue Butterfly who built demo, allowing consumers to login to Wi-Fi networks in hotels, restaurnts and other public spaces, simply by tapping their phone to an NFC tag.

The other winners were:

• BlackBerry Developer Group who created a Tesco’s shopper concept.
• Team Rollercoaster with an idea to streamline the queuing and paying experience at Theme Parks.
• PillIt with an idea to use NFC to enhance prescriptions by helping remind people to take medications.
• StreetScreen created an idea around playing games on large digital screen with players using their own mobile phones triggered using NFC tags to control the game.

We saw some great demos from BlackBerry, Nokia and VISA. It seems that all handset manufacturers now have plans for NFC phones. Apple were once again a topic on the rumour mill, with more and more people becoming convinced that NFC will be in the iPhone 5. With this in mind, we are currently collaborating with Device Fidelity on a version of Tag Center for the iPhone… more details to be revealed in the near future!

Another little snippet of information gathered was that the Google Wallet, although currently a US-only product, is likely to be launched in Europe soon, with Google having learnt some lessons and improving the latest version so that user experience and functionality is even better.

2012 looks like a brilliant year to be involved in NFC, and the Olympics will only make things better. If you’d like to explore the marketing side of the technology, Create London is fast approaching. The 36 hour event will give teams of up to five the chance to enter an idea for NFC and create it using our TouchPoint CMS. The winning team will receive a number of NFC prizes. More information can be found on the Create London website.

Our Quick Tap Treats from EAT as a thank you

We’re pretty excited to be the NFC force behind the latest (and greatest!) NFC campaign to hit the British isles. Orange and EAT have teamed up to offer 200,000 NFC customers the opportunity  to be rewarded for owning some of the latest gadgetry. All using our Tag Center application, which has been rebranded for Orange as Quick Tap Treats. When tapping the posters in EAT stores, users download the app and are instantly invited to play a free game with the chance to win EAT products. If you have an NFC Orange phone, you’ll receive a text to let you know about the game and where you can play.

The whole campaign is run using our NFC campaign management platform, TouchPoint which can provide in-depth campaign analytics. This is the first time that we’ve seen traditional print advertising transformed like this in the UK. NFC allows marketers to see when and where their campaigns are the most effective and build on this for the future. It’s fantastic to have Orange and EAT as excited as we are about the technology and we’re looking forward to seeing where a national campaign like this will see the tech heading by the end of the year.

Now to go and get that free coffee…

71% of executives think more needs to be done about m-payment security

When we talk about mobile payments we usually get the same reaction from people: excitement and trepidation. Human beings love convenience and gadgets that make everyday life easier. That said, we’re not naive. Especially when it comes to our money.

Like all new technologies, NFC mobile wallets come with their own security issues. The biggest hindrance to the mobile payment industry is security and consumer education on the matter. Last year, 71% of executives around the world cited security as the main challenge facing the mobile payment industry [KPMG Mobile Payments Outlook], and 61% of British consumers need more reassurance that contactless technology is secure [Ingenico].

Big brands and card issuers need to do more to calm the fears if mobile payments are ever going to become part of everyday life. But us techies can help too! Since we developed Touch Safe back in 2010, we’ve been commited to improving contactless payment security and last week announced our collaboration with ARM who have a wealth of experience in creating highly scalable, secure systems. The collaboration will focus on designing secure environments for NFC mobile contactless payments and mobile internet payments. We’ll be announcing details of what we’re working on within the next few weeks so watch this space!

Proxama's Tag Center application now available on BlackBerry

Heard about Tag Center and want to download it to your BlackBerry device? Click here.

Interested but want to know a bit more? Read on.

We believe that the guiding principle of NFC is to make life simple.  Any NFC phone can interact with tags on posters and signage, receiving web links to external content.

So what makes Tag Center special?

Tag Center turns the typical URL pop-up into a branded landing page with information on what you are about to download. It gives you the option to store tags in your History for use at a later date. Just picked up an NFC voucher from your favourite brand but not in town today? Tag Center will store the content so you can redeem it in store later on. There’s also the option to add tags to a Favourites section. NFC posters might not be on every bus shelter quite yet, but within a year they’ll start to crop up more and more. It would be easy to lose that competition win you picked up among the vouchers for paperclips and tea bags; with Tag Center you can store the things that are special to you in a Favourites list, making it easy to find them whenever you need to. Loyalty cards, business cards and more can also be stored in the app.

And everyone likes a bargain. What better deal than a freebie? We want people to enjoy NFC so we’re continuing to give Tag Center away for free.

The app is now available on Ovi, BlackBerry App World and Android NFC phones. Once you’ve downloaded it and had a look around, let us know what you think! We continue to develop our apps and appreciate feedback (good or bad!).