The latest innovation in customer profiling:
giving away free umbrellas with RFID chips, which can be read at participating shops, allowing said shops to identify where their customers came from:
A Motorola RFID tag is inlaid in the handle. Dutch Umbrella periodically dispatches an employee with a handheld reader to visit business sites and identify each umbrella. This information is later loaded into software developed by Concept2 Solution. Merchants can then pinpoint the areas from where the customers came and target those particular areas for advertising and promotion.