đWhen the NFL's VCs and Danny Meyer's VCs invest in the same company...
Inside the vaccine passport economy: The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter #77
Every once in a while thereâs a venture capital investment that makes you go âhmmâŚ.â
For instance: When restaurateur Danny Meyerâs venture capital fund, the NFLâs venture capital fund, and the Partnership for New York City announce that theyâre investing $100 million in Clear, the identity verification company best known for their omnipresent airport kiosksâ.
Those are weird bedfellows. And the reason theyâre investing $100 million in an identity tech company is in plain sight, right there in the press release: COVID and kinda sorta maybe resuming a vaguely normal consumer economy outside of peopleâs homes.
Hereâs what Clear has to say, copied directly from the press release:
CLEAR most recently launched "Health Pass," a mobile application that makes it safer and easier for people to get back to doing what they know and love. Health Pass connects members' identity to COVID-related information, including vaccination results, to reduce public health risk and help re-start the economy. Health Pass is currently being used to help reimagine the future of sports, work, travel and coming together in a post-COVID world. With vaccines being administered across the country, Health Pass securely links and validates individuals' vaccination credentials and will have access to the majority of healthcare facilities, pharmacies, and state-authorized vaccination centers. More than 35 organizations are currently using Health Pass to create safer environments, including the National Hockey League (with whom CLEAR has signed a league-wide partnership), MGM Resorts, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and nine NBA teams.
Translation = A lot of companies are investing a lot of money into smartphone apps that will verify youâve received COVID vaccines before you enter stadiums, restaurants, or even your workplace.
To be clear (And yes. Thatâs awful wordplay), Clear arenât the only business or organization exploring the âvaccine passportâ concept. Airlines, governments and trade associations worldwide are all looking at different ways to implement a vaccine passport. Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and the Mayo Clinic are collaborating on the similar Vaccine Credential Initiative, and thereâs a whole ecosystem of vendors exploring possibilitiesâ.
And given that I work in marketing and advertisingâand, honestly, there are a million hard-news centric resources covering the transition to a post-COVID economy in way more detail then meâIâm really interested in what Clearâs investment and the recent burst of R&D in vaccine passports means for the industry.
It means a hell of a lot more mobile tech, for starters.
Hereâs the thing: Weâre most likely headed to a world where (possibly temporarily, possibly longer-term) youâll have to verify your COVID-free status for access to many venues, events, businesses, modes of transportation and various professional and personal opportunities. The extent to how commonplace this will be relies on a complex calculus of business adoption, customer tolerance, public health need and government intervention.
That signaling of COVID-free status will most likely be done via mobile device. Paper is too easy to lose and too easy to forge; software also has the advantage of corporate backers with considerable abilities to encourage adoption.
Weâve already seen how COVID has speeded the adoption of mobile technology and payments in many countries. Peter Lugerâs takes credit cards and delivers now, for heckâs sake. My emphatically non-hipster neighborhood barber shop steers customers towards paying with Venmo, Zelle or Cash App. If I want to go to the gym, I have to first book an appointment with their mobile app; If I want to see the Edward Hoppers at the Art Institute of Chicago, I need to (yup) book a reservation online. Curbside pickup from my local big box store? Fuggedaboutitâ.
My read is that vaccine passports will be one more factor turning smartphones into keystones of everyday life. But itâs important to remember that this isnât always a good thing! Weâve built an entire online economy built on the commodification of personal data and surveillance, which turned out to be woefully inefficient. It turns out your web browsing habits and keywords from your most intimate emails arenât worth that much in terms of dollars! And not everyone has a good mobile phone fit for endless daily use, or even a mobile phone! And there are plenty of Americans who canât or wonât use smartphones for a whole host of valid reasons! Etc. etc.
And because one of the rules of the digital economy is that Apps Lead To Yet More Apps And Wild Attempts At New Monetization Models, I fully expect to see the unclear immediate post-COVID economyâwhere large portions of the population are vaccinated or immune, positivity rates and death rates have declined significantly while still keeping public health officials up at night, where masks will still be commonplace but 6-feet rules more or less ignored and where outbreaks will flare in some parts of the country while others are largely COVID freeâto lead to all sorts of improvised customer-side advertising and marketing tech experiments. Some of these experiments will remain part of the routine even afterwards.
I also donât think vaccine passports will be mandatory for every aspect of life. I have a hard time imagining my neighborhood bar requiring all the patrons to download one single app and then have every patronâs QR code scanned when they stop by for Tuesday Open Mike. I have a hard time imagining my supermarket scanning QR code after QR code during the weekend shopping rush. But for many situationsâhopping on flights, going to concerts at large values, entering university campuses, and so onâI could see them becoming a part of the daily routine very easily.
Or maybe Iâm completely wrong. Weâll see!
âClearâs airport kiosks (and Iâm sure thereâs a comms person for Clear somewhere bristling at this description! Itâs cool, I get it!) are basically a TSA PreCheck++ that usually (but not always) let customers go through airport security more quickly.
âRoughly speaking, the aftermath of big life-changing disasters like COVID and 9/11 offer opportunities for vendors who can offer expertise and implementation skills to clients who will pay top dollar for them. Itâs a conservative bet that convention centers and stadiums will pay top dollar for technology that lets them minimize the number of people getting ill on-premises and assure customers itâs okay to patronize them again.
âOne of retailâs great open secrets is that the customer experience is much logistics as it is product selection, brand identity, or in-store employees. COVID spurred about 10 years of innovation on the logistics front into six months or so, which is something weâll see legacy effects from for a long time.
FURTHER READING:
Has COVID-19 Changed The Way We Use Smartphones For Good?: Kantar deck
What Are Vaccine Passports And How Would They Work?: Iain Marlow & Jason Gale @ Bloomberg
NFL, Restaurateur Danny Meyer Back Digital Health Passports Through Investment in Clear: Matthew Parsons @ Skift
Things Iâve Enjoyed Lately:
How a YouTube archaeology rabbit hole turned into learning about sex in ancient Babylonia.
Deciphering the secret geography of the office.
This epic Ask Metafilter thread: What do you always recommend to people?
Last but DEFINITELY NOT LEAST, itâs 6 degrees in Chicago tonight. Donate some $$$ and help Chicago restaurant owner Jermaine Jordan get hotel rooms and hot meals out to the cityâs homeless.
Love and coffee,
Neal
About This Newsletter: Neal Ungerleider is a strategic communications consultant who works with individuals, agencies and brands. He hopes that you find his newsletter about the advertising-marketing-corporate communications industrial complex of use. Check out his bio, his portfolio, and current projects and interests .
Connect on Twitter or LinkedIn and learn more about at nealungerleider.com. To reach Neal, reply to this email or drop a line in the comments.