Dive Brief:
- Non-digital ads (think ads outdoors, on the radio, in magazines and in-stores) could soon be digitally shoppable thanks to a new app, PowaTag.
- U.K.-based Powa Technologies has introduced the PowaTag ads and an app that inserts and reads QR-code-type images in ads -- and sounds in radio ads that are undetectable to the human ear -- to power instant shopping.
- The PowaTag app picks up on the tags and adds items into a digital shopping cart that stores payment information, addresses and other contact details, allowing users to place purchases from directly within the digital cart.
Dive Insight:
Increasingly, digital ads are integrating instant buy buttons -- Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest have all joined the movement. PowaTag could be the next evolution of that that trend by bringing it into real life situations. Getting consumers to actually interact with the tags might pose as a hurdle at first. (QR codes -- a similar concept -- were once touted as the "next big thing" and now articles are creeping up, asking if the concept is dead.)
If PowaTags takes off, however, it could serve as the connecter that directly links advertisers to purchases. Removing the large funnel that accompanies traditional advertising could be huge -- if users participate.
Powa currently has a $2.7 billion valuation, and at least one big advertiser, L'Oréal USA, saying it will test out the technology.
