Why Stuffed Animals Must Get RFID'd
A funky idea for consumer tracking -- to embed tiny RFID chips in stuffed animals.
Purebi is a consulting firm for amusement arcade businesses. They advocate for detailed consumer tracking at amusement facilities and are exploring the use of RFID in that context. They are now collaborating with Hitachi, the manufacturer of the super tiny RFID chips called mu-chips, to build a "crane game" (e.g., UFO Catcher -- see the above photo) with all stuffed animals (they are the things in the glass case) RFID-chipped.
How are the stuffed animals used for consumer tracking? They are used like consumer loyalty cards. Let's say, you played the UFO Catcher game so many times and finally successfully fetched your first stuffed pikachu. If you show your pikachu, which you are so proud of, to an RFID-enabled kiosk terminal in an amusement facilty, you also have a chance to win some free gift. Everytime you come to the amusement facilty and use the kiosk terminal, the amusement facility captures and accumulates your data. The company thinks that using stuffed animals (rather than plain plastic RFID cards) is an important factor in successful consumer tracking and marketing.
BTW, below is the photo of the famous finger along with a tiny dot (mu-chip).
via ITMedia, July 20, in Japanese