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In what could be a sign of things to come for NFC applications, some NFC phone users in London will be able to tap movie posters for the forthcoming film, X-Men: First Class, to view a preview clip and link to the film’s Facebook page.

Update: About 10 or 20 posters have been deployed in central London for what amounts to a demonstration project for advertising agencies and buyers, who could use NFC in the future in their smart posters to sell films, toothpaste and other products, say organizers. Update ended.

Each poster comes with an NFC tag affixed to the back, which would enable users to view the film’s promotional trailer and link to the Facebook page through the phone’s browser if tapped by an NFC-enabled smartphone, according to UK-based Proxama, which created the tag-reading application for the marketing campaign. Twentieth Century Fox, which is expected to release the film in about a week in the United Kingdom, is backing the project.

Proxama said today it’s the first project stemming from its work with handset maker Nokia to develop NFC-enabled phone applications for Nokia smartphones. Nokia of late has been encouraging development of apps that use NFC’s tag-reading and peer-to-peer communication functions.

Update: But there are few NFC phones available for UK consumers to tap. The first Nokia smartphone capable of tag reading is the Symbian C7, but it needs the latest version of the Symbian operating system, called Anna, for the NFC chip to be activated. That is not yet available in the United Kingdom, though is expected soon.

Proxama CEO Neil Garner told NFC Times that project organizers are distributing about 20 C7 handsets to advertisers and outdoor media owners. Telefónica O2 UK is providing the SIM cards for these phones. But he added that consumers can access the content by tapping the movie posters if they happen to have an NFC-enabled phone, such as the Google Nexus S, or feature phone, such as the NFC version of the Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite or even an old-style Nokia 6212 with NFC inside.

Outdoor advertising agency Posterscope and its Hyperspace arm, along with billboard owner JCDecaux, also are working on the campaign.

"This is a campaign; it’s live and it works," Garner told NFC Times. "It’s the first one. We’ve got a lot of interest, making sure all the media owners know how we can help them execute campaigns."

Proxama said the NFC application includes its data management tool, called Tag Manager, which would provide usage figures and “in-depth analytics,” the company said in a press release announcing the project. That data could include the location at which a unique user tapped a poster and the content the user downloaded, Garner said.

Proxama said its smart-poster system could enable retailers and consumer products makers to "gain additional data about consumers, such as consumer location data and shopping history, which in turn will allow for more targeted advertising and greater accountability." Advertisers would be responsible for getting consumers to opt in to have their data collected and to receive targeted advertisements, Garner said. 

Enabling users to tap movie posters to view movie clips, connect to social media sites related to the films, get showtimes, directions to the nearest cinema showing the movie and even buy tickets to an upcoming showing has been mentioned often as an example of what NFC’s tag-reading functionality can offer.