Visa partners with Pizza Hut to show how retailers can embrace connected cars
Visa has partnered with Pizza Hut on a proof-of-concept connected car to highlight the opportunities of internet of things based commerce.
The car, revealed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week (2-5 March), integrates Visa Checkout - Visa’s online payment service – with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Beacon technology. It was demonstrated in three use cases; picking up a food order, a petrol station, and paying for parking.
For example, Pizza Hut has developed an app for the car which automatically opens when it’s within range of a restaurant. Through voice-activated technology, drivers are able to place an order and pay via the dashboard. Their car is then tracked and when it pulls up to the car park Pizza Hut staff are alerted and the order is delivered immediately.
Baron Concors, chief digital officer at Pizza Hut, said it got on board with the trial as part of its commitment to offering speed and convenience to customers when ordering online.
“This new connected car technology is the latest way for us to do that,” he said “We have the largest suite of mobile apps and are proud to be the exclusive pizza company to offer Visa Checkout, so with our history of innovation, it only made sense for us to be the first to test the beacon technology in cars.”
It is understood a number of other retailers are involved in the trail, although they have yet to be revealed.
Visa also showed how the technology could be harnessed by petrol station and city councils to make the process of paying for parking more seamless.
The partners expect to test the connected car commerce experience in Northern California, over a three-month period, starting this spring.
Visa’s vice president of digital solutions, Michele Janes, told The Drum that this is the first step in developing for the internet of things movement.
“We expect to see connected homes….connected all of it,” she said. “But the base line platform of Visa and tokenisation [its safety feature which replaces card data with a unique number] allows us to work in new and different environments. It’s just a matter of time until you see us working on more and additional devices.”
Janes added that at the company is completely agnostic on what the technology or provider is, as long as it supports Visa’s brand promise to provide safe, secure, easy and intuitive payments.
Accenture Digital has handled the integration of the technology into the car.