Riders in 5,000 taxicabs in the U.S. would be able to tap on NFC tags on video advertising screens to download apps, brand information, coupons, maps, music and videos, according to technology suppliers that have equipped the taxis for potential advertising campaigns.

The 5,000 taxis in which screens will get tags include 2,000 in New York City, 1,000 in Boston and 1,000 in Chicago, Mikhail Damiani, CEO of U.S.-based NFC marketing company Blue Bite, told NFC Times. The other 1,000 screens will be divided among Anaheim, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, he said.

Blue Bite is is providing its mTag platform for the rollout to New-York based taxi interactive media and payments company Creative Mobile Technologies, or CMT, which owns the screens in the taxis. CMT said on its Web site that it plans to expand the service to its screens in 20,000 cabs in 60 cities. There was no word yet on which advertisers might use the panels with NFC, though CMT said the ABC network and the city of New York regularly provide content for its screens in New York.

The screens are mounted on the back of the taxis’ front seats; in response to video or static images on the screens, passengers would be able to tap an NFC tag or scan a QR code on the screen’s frame to access content, such as the application downloads, brand information, coupons, videos and other content. Damiani told NFC Times that the content on the tags will be associated with the content displayed on the screens.

“The information and content will be coming from a variety of sources,” said Damiani, including ABC regional sports and entertainment sales and other brands and advertisers.

The taxis already have point-of-sale terminals installed by CMT that accept contactless payments, some of which are built into the screens and some which are separate terminals, Damiani said, so the tag rollout will be focused on content delivery. 

Installation of the tags will begin in June, with a complete rollout expected by September. “Since all of the tags are not in the same place at the same time and the fleets are split between multiple owners, there is a bit of a logistical challenge as compared to other rollouts we have done, like the malls for example,” said Damiani.

He referred to the April 15 rollout of Blue Bite’s mTag platform on 2,000 “smart screen” advertising displays owned by Adspace Networks in 140 malls and shopping centers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

That deployment also presented challenges; Damiani described the permanent digital ad displays as “a little bit trickier” than embedding tags on a static poster for a temporary campaign. “With a static poster, once the poster is taken down and the campaign is over, you don’t have the risk of someone walking up, engaging, and not getting anything,” he told NFC Times in March 2013, stressing the importance of ensuring that good content was always available on the tags.

Blue Bite is one of a growing number of companies offering NFC tag-marketing platforms, which brands could use to make their advertising campaigns more interactive on billboards and other out-of-home media. The platform companies are positioning themselves to serve expected demand as NFC phones roll out on a large scale.

The platforms use NFC tags, as well as QR codes, to connect users to Web-based content, which brands can update or change using content-management systems the companies provide. The platform vendors also offer data analytics on the campaigns.

Such other companies as Connecthings, Proxama, Tapit, Thinaire, zappit and Identive, itself also a tag supplier, offer platforms.

Earlier in May, Blue Bite announced that it would provide the mTag marketing platform to an out-of-home campaign for sporting goods company JanSport. The campaign includes “smart posters” at newsstands, bus shelters, and other locations around New York City; consumers tap the tags to view video content and download free songs from local musicians.  Kinetic Worldwide planned the campaign, and San Francisco-based TEAK designed the posters.

Last year, Blue Bite provided NFC technology for an advertising campaign for Hotel Tonight, a same-day hotel reservation application. During the six-week campaign, digital advertising displays at eight airports and several hundred cafes near airports played short video advertisements for the application, and users could tap NFC tags or scan QR codes to download it. In June 2012, Blue Bite reported that the displays had received 15,000 unique taps or scans, and half of those users had downloaded the application.

In the May 14 release announcing the taxi deployment, Blue Bite claimed a 115% increase per location in taps or scans of its tags over the last 18 months. “That reflects consumer uptake in NFC, increased market saturation of smartphones, and increased knowledge and behavior of mobile interactivity with out-of-home campaigns,” said Damiani.