Starbucks Paying The Way For Mobile Payments

Starbucks, Mobile Wallet, Mobile Payments, Startups, Boosterville

No one will ever own a computer in their home.

No one will ever put a phone in their car.

No one will ever need Microsoft Word on their phone.

No one will ever pay for things using their phone.

All of those statements have been proven wrong by technology. The last one–proven wrong both by technology and by America’s favorite coffee shop, Starbucks.

Through their mobile app and their easy to use pay-at-counter system, Starbucks is now reporting that 1 in 10 purchases is paid for by mobile app, the company’s Chief Digital Officer Adam Brotman reported during their earnings call on Friday. In addition to the growth of paying by mobile, loyalty cards were up 30% year over year, which is also tied into their mobile app.

This is great news for startups like Dwolla, Boosterville, Paytango and the countless others that are relying on people moving from physical wallet to digital wallet.

Starbucks is leading the way in terms of mobile payments at huge retail chains, but Paypal is actually breaking into the mainstream as well. Paypal account holders can now integrate their Paypal Mobile app with a phone pin (set up in app) and pay for their purchases at the checkout at places like Home Depot, Champs, Babies R Us, Dollar General and several other retail establishments.

Some entrepreneurs, like Boosterville CEO and co-founder Pam Cooper, are integrating mobile services a la Starbucks. With the Boosterville app, mobile wallet and loyalty & rewards are being integrated for fundraising.

While mobile payments are on the rise, startups like PayTango are taking it to another level with biometric wallets. Services like PayTango, which is currently beta testing in Pittsburgh and California, allow users to pay for things using their finger print. At CES earlier this year we met with a startup that is hoping to use retina scanning technology for payments as well.

Sometimes all it takes is one big name (Starbucks) to adopt a technology. Before too long, even grandma will think it’s normal to pay from her phone.

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Vancouver Startup Thinkingbox: touching consumers and corporations alike

via thinkingbox.ca

Everywhere Else: Thinkingbox is Vancouver based startup with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles.  They bring touch to the advertising space.  As they state in their about page,  “As a true interactive house, our focus is to provide a 2-way communication for all brands.

[DISCLAIMER] I HATE ADVERTISING, I felt it was necessary to mention that prior to going into this article.   I believe it is a necessary evil as it provides us with great and useful information for “free” (ala Google) or provides an income for sites like ours (however modest, in our case extremely modest).  I tend to have ad blocking on most of the computers I use and on all my Android devices.  The reason is simple – very often ads get in the way of the experience.  Either through pop ups that have impossibly small close buttons or by being rudely smartly placed by those who run sites like ours.

 

 

I have to admit that a company such as thinkingbox could be what changes my view on some advertising.  One thing that has always been missing in most ads, I believe, is the actual ability to truly communicate with the companies.  I don’t know if thinkingbox can change that just yet.  What they have managed to do is make advertising campaigns more personal by adding interactive elements to in-store displays, billboards, and building full featured digital campaigns.  They explain what their focus is, “Serving the advertising industry we focus on alternative media such as Touch Screen Billboards, 2-Way Interactive Campaigns, Touch and Motion Storefronts, Mobile and Tablet Applications and everything digital.”

I have wondered how long until all the different forms of advertising would converge into a unified experience.  Thinkingbox is pushing towards that idea.  Once they can provide websites like ours with advertising that can really pull our readers in we hope that the (extremely modest) ad income might be able to become something better – like decent.

We will be following up with them and hope to have an interview with the founder Amir Sahba and/or Director of Interactivity Natalie Elbracht within the next couple of weeks. I’ve included videos to some of their recent work.  You can find their portfolio here 

Starbucks – My Starbucks Rewards Interactive Display :

Starbucks “My Starbucks Rewards” Interactive Display from thinkingbox on Vimeo.

Approach: Thinkingbox implemented a fun, whimsical and engaging interactive application which was prominently featured as a touch-interactive display window. Animated falling stars beckoned passer-byes to engage, touch and explore. Players can make the stars follow their finger, collapse into a gravity well or explode off the screen. Delightful animated details such as motion blur and bouncy spring motion enhanced the whimsical nature of the piece. The application was deployed and ran on both Mac OS X and Windows operating systems.

Another example is from the Nike #KobeSystem brand.  In thinkingbox’s words,

Scope: This custom app was featured along side the Nike Kobe VII System basketball shoes at a downtown Toronto Nike retailer. Customers could try out Nike shoes and then watch funny commercials featuring Kobe Bryant himself, explaining the Kobe System to various celebrities. These videos were compressed and optimized into the app that would also capture metrics on how well the app was able to engage customers.

Approach: A rich multimedia experience was required to showcase the Kobe System brand. An iPad was chosen as the medium because of its portable multitouch capability, multimedia options and ease of development.

The Kobe video can be found below:

Linkage:

Thinkingbox

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