A US company has integrated tracking data into umbrellas to monitor consumer behaviour when it rains. The article explains how a sponsor’s logo and/or address and phone number are printed on one panel of each umbrella. With eight panels per umbrella, up to eight sponsors can advertise on each.

To track the umbrellas’ movements, Dutch Umbrella uses a combination of RFID technology and old-fashioned manpower. Each umbrella is equipped with a passive EPC Gen 2 RFID inlay provided by Motorola. The read-write inlay, encased in a plastic tag hanging from a plastic ring attached to the umbrella’s handle, is encoded with a unique ID number linked to that umbrella. One side of the tag is printed with a sponsor’s name, while the other features Dutch Umbrella’s logo and Web site address, as well as the umbrella’s tag ID number. The Web site carries information about happenings in the area, and lists the sponsoring merchants.

It is a pilot study so the results are yet to be seen. Looks like an interesting way to be able to track customers as they make their way around the city. Not so sure how well in would work in windy Wellington though.