Enable spontaneous purchases via multiple media, including radio, with PowaTag

The ability to make purchases immediately from any media at any time is becoming a reality. Now, consumers can even make purchases via mobile through audio ads on the radio thanks to PowaTag.

by Helen Leggatt

Enabling consumers to make purchases while in the moment, at any place, and at any time has seen buy buttons crop up in many places such as social media and in video ads. New mobile technology from Powa Technologies Ltd has just widened the immediate purchase phenomenon to include radio, television and cinema.

Called PowaTag, the platform enables consumers to conduct instant transactions with their smartphone through any media in real-time. After downloading the app, consumers can engage with advertising by scanning the PowaTag QR-codes on a screen, in print media, or even by holding the phone up to a radio or other audio ad to activate the AudioTag option.

Two taps later and the transaction is complete.

"We're the veneer that fits between the consumer and the brand and the retailer and makes things easier," said Dan Wagner, CEO of UK-based Powa Technologies, told AdAge. "If we can do that at hardly any cost to the advertiser, then there's nothing to stand in the way of adoption. The credit card firms like it. The banks like it. The retailers like it. The brands like it. And the media owners love it."

According to Wagner, more than 1,200 brands in the U.S., Europe and South Africa have already signed up to PowaTag campaigns that will begin appearing in various media this summer.