positive disruption by: Tom Martin | New Orleans based Social Media | B2B Digital Prospecting | Digital Strategy Agency

The Benefits of Technology Gentrification

I've been thinking about first mover advantage a lot lately.... and today it sort of solidified in my mind as I drove my son to camp located in an area of Austin that when I was his age, neither of us would have been caught dead in. So I want to share that thinking with you -- unformed as it may be -- and get your two cents.

Gentrification is one of those polarizing ideas. Traditionally associated with the change in urban landscapes where those with money begin to build and live in areas traditionally inhabited by those without money.

The result -- if the early adopters guess right, their late adopter friends follow and gentrification begins. Within a few years a low rent district becomes the new hotspot.

But that's not the point of this post. Whether you think gentrification is good or bad for a neighborhood is certainly up for debate...what isn't up for debate though is the value of gentrification to those early adopters.

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The Value of Early Adoption of Technology

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For those lucky early adopters, the resulting gentrification (or adoption to make the point clearer) of the neighboorhood results in increased property values and thus creates opportunities to grow wealth through rise in value of owned assets or through cash by selling those owned assets at the new, higher gentrified price.

I think the same approach holds true in technology. Take QR Codes for instance. At Blog World last week we talked about the value of a technology used by so few. Why should marketers invest time and effort into QR if it was still a non-gentrified technology?

The answer is simple -- it doesn't cost much and IF the technology becomes hot, you the brand or company that tested and learned early will be better positioned to exploit the gentrified technology.

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The Value of Technology Speculation

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Look in almost any big dollar industry -- real estate, money, oil, etc., and you'll see those with the biggest bank accounts are most often those that speculate the most. They make lots of bets, some of which pay out and others of which don't.

As Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Digital Engagement Officer at Sears Holdings Corporation, pointed out when I interviewed her about Sears' recent QR experiment, "You have to be putting a lot of chips out there to see which ones cash in..."

The digital space -- mobile, social, content marketing -- is still so new and evolving so fast that if you're waiting for others to show you the way (which most companies are), you're going to finish dead last. Instead, to quote Marcus Sheridan during a Blog World interview, "You gotta keep the pedal down and keep on pushing if you want to win today."

I think Digital R&D is going to be the key to success over the next 5-10 years. Digital technology continues to be a disruptive force in every industry it touches. You're going to need to stay ahead of that curve or find a Digital Consigliere that can keep you ahead if you don't want to get left behind.

The value of being ready, of being the company that tested and learned early will be that you'll be better positioned to exploit the gentrified technology when the time is right.

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The Value of First Mover Knowledge

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Last week at Blog World I saw that one of the session speakers was sharing data on the life of a tweet. This is nothing new, the first major report of that nature I recall seeing was Hubspot's Shelf Life of Social Media Links back in September of 2011.

The funny thing is -- I and my clients had that knowledge in February of 2009! Almost two full years ahead of the Hubspot report. Why? Because we invested in Digital R&D. As part of my Mardi Gras Twitter Experiment, we tracked the lifespan of our tweets. And that wasn't the only knowledge we had... the resulting data set was full of highly valuable insights -- some of which we shared, many of which we didn't.

So ask yourself -- what's a two year knowledge advantage worth in your industry?

 

And in my mind, that's the value of Digital R&D... that's why you have to take a long-term vs short-term look at the ROI of your digital investments. This space is new and moving fast... and if you want to succeed in it, if you want to leverage it for maximum value to your company -- you need to be learning on the job vs just reading what others choose to share with you from their learnings.

I started this post by saying I wanted to hear your thoughts... so let me know what you think... am I off my rocker or is this something that we all should be focusing on a tad bit more?

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Do Consumers Really Scan QR Codes?

During the 2011 Christmas season, Sears ran an interesting digital outdoor-mobile campaign. Taking a cue from Tesco's incredible QR code campaign, Sears built and deployed a number of outdoor executions to test whether consumers would scan QR codes to learn more about and ultimately purchase the some of the hottest toys of the season.

But the campaign was more than just another holiday promotion, it was really a bit of digital R&D on Sears part. According to Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Digital Engagement Officer at Sears Holdings Corporation, Sears faces a problem that was very similar to Tesco's -- not enough stores to compete.

You might think that is pretty crazy given Sears has over 890 Sears Department Stores nationwide, but think about it. If you add up all of the Toys-R-Us stores, Walmarts, Targets, and let's not forget Amazon or just the WWW in general, well, Sears is seriously lacking in store fronts in the USA.

Enter the Tesco example. Can you say lightbulb moment?

So Sears set forth to test the idea of QR codes as mobile bridge and shopping activator. But just to be safe, they also included a short URL that took the consumer to a mobile friendly shopping landing page.

Now, a couple of interesting notes of context provided to me by Julia during an interview she was kind enough to provide to me.

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Three QR Code Campaign Best Practices

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1. Include instructions on your displays and ads that tell the consumer what to do. In Sears' case, they had the red circle with Snap. Shop. and a QR code with "shop all" next to it. Was that enough "instruction" for the average consumer? Maybe or maybe not. Be sure to check out one of the interesting results Sears shared with me and then decide.
2. Consider location context. Sears placed their installations where the consumer would have "dwell time" (I love that term) like airports, bus shelters, movie theater lobbies, and one that I thought was a fabulous idea food courts in malls. Again, be sure to see the results section for another really interesting piece of learning re: location of your QR enabled advertising. 
3. Always provide a short URL option. You'll notice that Sears nails this with a short URL that is easily findable and quite easy to type. Users that entered the URL on their mobile phone were taken to a mobile friendly Sears store that featured the toys you saw on the installation. In fact, if you enter Sears.com/Toys on your mobile phone you can see the site as it is still live.

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Results of Sears' QR Code Campaign

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While Julia couldn't release any specific stats, she was kind enough to share a number of great lessons from the campaign.

First, consumers favored the short URL option over the QR codes. According to Julia, there was significantly more activity coming in over the short URL option than the QR code scan option. This could be a function of a number of factors including lack of consumer awareness about QR codes, lack of installed QR readers on phones or maybe as simple as not enough "education" copy on the installations explaining what the QR codes are and how they could be used.

Second, placement/location matters. If she did this campaign again, Julia might not be so quick to place installations in malls. While yes, mall shoppers are there to ahhh shop, mall placements are difficult because you don't find out where you're going to show up in the mall until the last minute. Additionally, often Sears wasn't able to secure their preferred dwell time spot -- next to a food court -- which likely reduced the desire to scan.

Third, humans are visual animals. Based on the tracking data, the items with the biggest and cutest pictures and NOT hottest toys of the season did best in sales. Again, Julia couldn't release any stats here but she did note that she and her team were a bit surprised to see the "hottest toys" didn't necessarily turn out to be the best sellers on the installations. In fact, one of the toys, Chuck the Truck, which was probably a 5 on a 1-10 scale of hottest toys sold significantly more units than a number of the "hottest toys of the season" that were also on the advertisements.

Fourth, brand doesn't necessarily matter. One of the things Liz and her team tested was the brand effect on sales. I personally love this one as so many companies might have missed this opportunity. Luckily Liz and her team didn't and they tested brand effect by posting some of the units under the Sears brand and others under the Kmart brand (Sears owns Kmart). The result? Well there wasn't any real difference. A Sears branded installation was just as likely to generate scans and mobile URL activity as a Kmart installation.

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What can you learn from Sears' QR Code Experiment?

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Well in addition to the learning above, I think there is one really important point you should take away from the Sears example.

As Liz put it so perfectly, "the key marketing challenge of getting consumers' attention hasn't changed. What has changed is the execution platform for gaining that attention."

That's why smart brands have to be engaging in Digital R&D. As Liz put it, "You have to be putting a lot of chips out there to see which ones cash in..." 

But what about you? Is your company investing in Digital R&D? Are you building small scale, real world experiments to ensure you're able to stay ahead of your competition? If not, why not?

 

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Other QR Posts You May Like

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Here are a list of my other QR Code posts that you may find helpful.

• QR Codes: Marketing Game Changer or Mobile Fancy?
• QR Codes Marketing Success is About Context
• The QR Content Behind the QR Code
• 3 Reasons You Should NOT Use QR Codes on a Website
• How Can You Make Your Tourism Ads Work Harder?

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QR Codes: Marketing Game Changer or Mobile Fancy?

Back in March, I wrote a post for Ad Age entitled, QR Codes: Game Changing Technology of Passing Fancy. Last week, the fine folks over at the TACVB Conference gave me an hour to expand on my thoughts about QR Codes in Marketing. Below is a slidecast (slides and audio sync'd) of the presenstation.

The entire presentation is just under an hour. In it, I discuss how QR Codes bridge consumers from the physical to the digital world. I also talk about six of the most common arguments against QR codes and why half of them are completely rediculous. And lastly, we covered a few great examples of how to use QR Codes in your marketing (especially destination or hospitality marketing) and finish up with a few frequently asked questions, like "How big should a QR code be to scan properly?"

So give it a listen and then let me know what you think.

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3 Reasons You Should NOT use a QR code on a website

A DM in my stream this morning asked if I knew of any posts that specifically talk about why you shoud NOT use a QR code on a webiste. I couldn't find any quickly, so allow me to create one for you.

I've been doing a lot of QR Code Campaign experiments over the last year and thinking about the kinds of content that work well with QR Codes. These thoughts are formed from my own direct interactions, examples of QR code usage I've seen in the real world (including the best examples of QR code usage I've seen). And based on all of this usage, testing and studying, I just can't see why you'd put a QR code on a website. And here is why.

• While QR codes can be "programmed" to link to emails, dial phone numbers, etc., the primary value of them is to instantly transport a consumer from a phyiscal place (ad, direct mail piece, location sign, etc) to a digital destination (contact page, map, menu, video, etc) in a thumb friendly manner. That is to say, QR's primary value to a consumer is it aleviates the need to type a URL into a smart phone.

• QR codes are still a nascent technology here in the US. Sure over in Japan and Asia they are widely adopted, often used and pretty much common place. But here in the US, folks are still discoving the technology, hence why you always have to explain what it is/how to use it in an ad, etc., to boost your scanning rates. 

• QR code scanning requires a dedicated app on the smartphone. Currently very few phones are being shipped with the required app, so if your audience isn't QR savvy, they likely don't have the app to scan the code on your website anyways.

Which leads me to the big payoff... the reason I think it's kind of silly to put a QR code on a website.

The person is already on your website via a computer, which is a far better tool to surf the web, find information and conduct eCommerce than a smartphone.

So, if a consumer is on your website already, why do you need to possibly confuse them with an icon/technology that they quite likely may not understand or be able to access without downloading an app? Why would you want to offload them to an environment that costs additional dollars to develop and is much harder to use (vis-a-vis a computer)?

Sure QR codes are trackable, but then so are websites, and I'm guessing you already have the website analytics tools. So that's not a good reason.

So is placing a QR code on a website ALWAYS a bad idea?

Actually, no. I think there are a couple of times where a QR code makes sense on a website.

• You're giving away a downloadable item designed to work on a smartphone. Things like apps, ringtones, wallpapers, etc. Here a QR code makes it quite easy to begin the process. No typing required.

• You want the consumer to add address/contact information to their address book. Again, no typing required... I scan, confirm and presto -- you or your company information is in my phone.

• You're offering some kind of mobile friendly information. For instance, tourism destinations might want to offer a mobile friendly PDF of their vacation guide. A hotel might want to provide a list of key locations near the hotel - restaurants, electronics retailers, bars, etc., in a simple downloadable PDF. Again, QR makes a lot of sense here.

In the end, the greatest value of a QR code is that it instantly transitions a consumer from a mobile/physical place to a digital/web place and vice versa. So if your goal is to transfer between the physical/mobile world and the online/web world (in either direction) a QR code could be the right technology.

But if all you're doing is putting a QR code on a website because its the cool, hot, trendy technology of the day... well, have fun but I honestly can't see how you're helping me move through the buying process, which is the goal of your website to begin with isn't it?

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The Best Use of QR Codes I've Seen

QR codes are hot right now and lots of folks are wondering, how do I use QR Codes in my marketing.

So today, I thought I'd share two real world uses that I saw just today, that in my mind, are absolute winners.

While QR Codes can be programmed to send a text message, call a phone number, or send an email, I still think the best use of QR Codes in marketing is to create a thumb friendly way to transport smartphone toting consumers to a digital destination.

But not just any destination. A destination that is going to add value by solving a problem the marketing creates.

For instance, take a look at this picture of a concert flyer I saw today. We've all seen concert flyers just like this one stapled to telephone poles, walls and just about any surface a band could adhere them to.

But if you stop and think about it a minute, your standard run of the mill concert flyer is really effective at communicating to fans of the band but whoefuly inadequate convincing non-fans to attend.

Why you ask? Because if I'm not familiar with the band, so what if they're playing on April 21 at 9pm?

The marketing (flyer) creates a problem for me the consumer. I'm a fan of live music, I might even be free on April 21 at 9pm but I have no idea what kind of music Jessica Mayfield sings.

Enter the QR Code. Go ahead, scan the one on the picture, it should work. If it doesn't, I've embedded the video it links to below.

 

With the addition of a simple QR code, the mobile consumer (remember you're going to see this when you're walking or driving by this pole) is able to solve the problem the marketing causes. And if I happen to like her style, I might stop by the show.

So band flyer without QR code = interesting but band flyer with QR Code = persuasive.

More than a few people have commented that using QR Codes on websites seems odd. After all, you're already online and a simple URL would work just fine, so why would you ever use a QR Code on a website.

I have to say, I totally agree.

Unless maybe you're marketing an iPhone app.

The app is something I need to get on my phone. So what better, thumb friendly way, to help me do that?

I guess the point I'm suggesting is that QR Codes have a role in marketing just like every other tactic. The key to effectively using QR Codes in your marketing is to understand the context of consumption and use them where that context lends itself to a mobile friendly solution.

UPDATE: I just found this video thanks to a tweet from Francoise Camarinha, a new Twitter follower from over the pond. It's simply awesome and shows just how QR Codes can help the consumer cross the online/offfline barrier AND improve their lives. Really smart stuff.

 

But I'm just one guy... what do you think? Are QR Codes just all hype? Are there real uses of the technology that really make sense? Let me know... comment away.

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Related articles

• How The Mobile Phone Is Changing Marketing (tommartin.typepad.com)

 

How The Mobile Phone Is Changing Marketing

Last week I had the honor of chatting with the Social Media Club of Dallas about the role of mobile in the future of marketing. I promised I'd upload the deck and the sync'd audio of my talk for folks to share... and here it is.

Mobile Marketing | Mobile Content Creation

View more webinars from Converse Digital

Rather than discuss mobile stats or adoption rates, we spent the evening discussing a few key trends that I feel are leading to a bigger role for mobile both as content marketing tool and content consumption device.

Specifically, we talked about how mobile tools like the iPhone4 are really so much more than phones. They are full-fledged multi-media production studios that we all carry in our pocket every day.

We also reviewed numerous examples of consumers' ability to use their smart phone as a personal HUD (Heads Up Display) for life. Today's smart phone gives marketers the ability to push information that is presented in an easy to understand format that tomorrow's consumer is already being trained to want.

And lastly, we talked about technologies like QR (Quick Response Codes) Codes, AR (Augmented Reality) Markers and key tips for using both.

If you're not yet using or planning to leverage mobile marketing as a larger player in your 2011 marketing or 2012 marketing plans, you probably should. Mobile Marketing is the ultimate propinquity marketing tool because quite often, that mobile phone is the last item in the same hand that is about to grab the credit card that is going to be used to purchase your product or your competitor's.

Think about it. Watch the slidecast and then let me know what you think. After all, as I told the folks in Dallas, I don't have to be right, but I do have to be aware... because that's what my clients pay me for... so let me know if you agree, disagree or whatever with the points in the deck.

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Looking for a few smart brands

Tweet As I finish up 2010 and look forward to 2011, I'm planning a couple of interesting social media, digital and mobile experiments. I think they will all be quite interesting and generate a ton of good insight and information, but they aren't free. There are hard costs to pay and soft costs (my wife likes when I bring home a paycheck) so I'm looking for a few smart, inquisitive brands that believe low-cost experimentation with new technology is the key to leapfrogging the competition.

Here is an quick overview of two of the experiments - both launching in 1Q11. If you're a brand that wants to get an edge in 2011 without breaking the bank, and you'd like to learn more about either of these projects, contact me at ConverseDigital [at] gmail [dot] com.

Talking With Tom
What if you could create, launch and manage a 52-week social media campaign featuring 50-60 of the leading voices in the digital space sharing what they think is coming next? And what if that entire social media campaign was a video blog that is shot, edited and published all from an iPhone?

What could you learn about creating content on a low budget? What could you learn about social content distribution? What could you learn about the type of content your fans/followers prefer? And most importantly, what kind of conversation(s) could you create and engage in as a result of sharing a treasuretrove of free information with the digital world?

That's the goal of our my Talking With Tom project. I want to see if I can really produce a 52-week vBlog with nothing other than my iPhone. So far, the beta test says I can... and I've lined up an incredible group of folks that have agreed to share their thoughts on What's Next. Folks like Jay Baer, Greg Cangialosi, Jason Falls, Chris Brogan and others have agreed to give me a few minutes and few thoughts. So starting in January, I'll release one video per week at TalkingWithTom.com.

Thankfully the Fairmont Hotel Group has agreed to give me rooms to sleep in when I'm in cities where they have properties, but I still need to get to/from those places and eat. So, I'm looking for one or two other partner brands that want to experiment with this space and learn what works and what doesn't, before their competition does. Is that you? If so, let's talk about working together. I'd love an airline (hint hint American) or just a brand that wants to play along and help select some of the folks we'll interview. I've got about half of the interviews committed but still have to ID and lock down the other half. And even if you're not a brand that wants to play, let me know if there is anyone in particiular you'd like me to interview and I'll see if I can get them to agree!

 

QR Codes in Tourism
I'm betting these little black and white babies can change tourism in a big way. I've done a number of QR code marketing experiments, but now it's time to take the technology out of a lab environment and subject it to a real world live fire demonstration.

So I need a CVB or a DMO organiztion that wants to put a little of their 2011 marketing budget into getting ahead of their competitive set. Specifically, I want to test QR codes throughout the tourism purchase cycle. From acquistion to booking to in-market applications. I'm convinced there is gold in those codes and the first destination that figures it out is going to get a big leg up on the competition. So, will it be you? Again, if your a CVB or a DMO that is interested in learning more, let's talk about working together.

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I've also got a few projects that I'm not ready to share publicly. But if you're in the liquor world and you'd like to experiment with a plug & play, local market level Cause Marketing program -- man do we need to talk. I've got just the ticket for you.

So that's it for now...would love to hear from a few good brands... and from you. What do you think about the experiments? Who would you like me to interview for Talking With Tom? And what, if anything, would you be interested in learning about where QR Codes are concerned?

Let me know.

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photo by kevindooley

Are We Really Ready for QR Codes in America?

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R We LinkedIn?

That was the question I asked all day last week at TribeCon 2010. I had the opportunity to talk to the crowd about why Advertising Will Never Light Your Customer's Fire and thought I'd use my 10 minutes of stage time to launch a micro-experiment. You know me... I love trying little social media experiments.

So I created a custom QR Code t-shirt (the one I'm wearing in the pic above) and wore it to the conference. Other than the missing question mark at the end, I thought it was pretty straightforward. I was inviting you to scan the code and if we were not connected on LinkedIn, add me.(BTW - it even works in this photo. Go ahead...scan it and see what happens.) UPDATE: I've been told by at least one reader the code won't scan... so just in case, click here to view my QR Code to see the actual code and scan it)

The point of the experiment was two-fold. First, I wanted to see if the technology would work. Would people be able to add me via the mobile device? And of course test the tracking software on the backend of the QR Code. Glad to report that all of that worked just fine. Overall scanning wasn't a problem, but I did have to occasionally make sure the shirt wasn't wrinkling over the code. The only other scan problem was when folks didn't have an open source QR Code scanner app. For instance, one person only had the MS Tag scanner, so it wouldn't work.

The second goal of the experiment -- and truthfully the more important one to me -- was to test basic human nature. Far too often I feel that technology makers and marketers can get caught up on our own love of the geek. We forget though that society, at least the face-to-face kind lives under certain social norms.

One of the biggest norms or abnorms depending on how you look at it is that in general, most folks do not feel comfortable coming up to a complete stranger and saying hello much less scanning their t-shirt. Given the high geek to normal people ratio attending TribeCon, I thought I might get a different outcome but alas, it seems even geeks feel odd violating someone's personal space to scan a t-shirt.

What I did see was a lot of folks looking at the shirt, pointing (usually sitting or standing in groups of one or two) and then they'd point to their phones... it was pretty clear they were talking about the shirt and the QR Code. But they wouldn't come over and try it for themselves. Of the 12 recorded scans (there were about 150 or so folks at TribeCon) most were by folks that knew me personally and wanted to "play with the shirt."

So it would seem that while we can create scannable clothing, human beings might not be quite ready for it. I'm hoping to learn more when I head up to Loudoun, VA for the SoMeT Tourism Symposium. I'm going to make a few more shirts to test. I think for one I'm going to put the code on the back and see if that one generates more scans. Maybe being able to sneak a scan is more acceptable... we'll see!

So what do you think about the idea/experiment? Why do you think I got the results I got? And most of all, any suggestions for how I might get better results with my next iteration?

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Thirsty Thursday of Knowledge - Microsoft Code Examples

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Last week we talked a bit about QR Codes and I shared a number of real life QR Code examples.

But while you've probably heard a lot about QR codes, there are other options out there. We covered JagTags before and they're pretty interesting. The only tag platform we haven't covered yet is Microsoft's MS Code. So today we're going to fix that. On a recent flight home to New Orleans I was surprised to find not one, not two but three advertisements in a single issue of People Magazine, all that used MS Tags.

Ford has been experimenting with JagTags and now MS Tags. If you scan this MS Code in the ad you'll be transported to a microsite for the Ford Edge. Once there you can view videos, see reviews, specs, etc.

So now Ford can put all the really heavy copy stuff in the MS Code and leave the ad space itself to do what ads do best - grab a reader's attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garnier is using the code in this ad to transport you to a 2 minute commercial for it's hair care line. Given the cost of buying a national 2-minute commercial on TV, this is another good example of how companies can leverge more effecient print media buys AND get the sight/sound/motion impact of TV.

Personally, I think I might have tried to insert some kind of bounceback like having the video dump the viewer to Facebook or Twitter or Garnier web page. Something that would give that viewer a chance to give Garnier an opportunity to continue engaging that viewer in an ongoing digital conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This next example is pretty interesting because it's not one brand. People created this ad to highlight a number of advertisers.

I love this because it really leverages the power of QR, JagTag or MS Codes -- the ability to put a lot of information in a small area -- the code.

If you scan each code at the bottom of the ad you'll be taken to a different video. The video itself provides some fashion advice and then integrates the brand whose tag you scanned into the video.

My only gripe is I think the videos are too much alike from a content perspective, so after you watch one or two, you kind of lose interest in watching the other two.

Also, the product integration is pretty heavy handed... I wonder how much more powerful the videos could be if the brand was woven into the content storyline vs just bolted on in a "sponsor" type approach.

 

 

 

And lastly we have Starbucks. If you scan the code in this Starbucks ad you'll be taken directly to a mobile friendly sweepstakes sign up page.

Given that American's almost always have their mobile phone in their pocket or within reach, this makes it super easy to register. This makes it much easier to sign up for the sweepstakes versus say a traditional URL that I have to cut out, remember or write down so I can use it the next time I'm near a computer.

My only suggestion or wish for this use of MS Codes would be a more social media friendly registration form. If I have a smart phone and I know what a MS Code is or what to do with it, I'd be willing to bet that person is probably on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. So why not give them an option to give you that information and permission to talk to them in that channel. Again, a chance to continue the conversation.

So that's my round up of MS Codes. What do you think? Do you like JagTag, MS Code or QR Code better? Have you seen other great exampels of this technology in action?

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Thirsty Thursday of Knowledge - Real Life QR Code Examples

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There is a lot of chatter going on right now about QR Codes. If you're not familiar with QR codes, maybe take a minute and watch this quick demo video I put together.

If you're up to date on QR codes, then take a look at a number of ways various advertisers are using them. Note: all QR Codes are LIVE -- so if you have a QR reader on your phone, scan away. Just remember, I'm not responsible for what you find on the other end of the code, ok?

Wanna See My R-Rated Ads?
Fashion houses are always trying to push the envelope in their advertising. Always trying to be hip, cool and sometimes a tad dangerous.

Problem is, the TV censors are getting in the way of all the fun. Enter QR codes -- scan this one, located on a billboard in NYC supporting their Fall 2010 campaign.

Warning - you might want to make sure no one is around. Go ahead.. I won't tell. ;)

 

 

Will I like this wine?
Wine shopping is a tough gig. For most of us, wine is unapproachable and confusing. We might know the basics, but when confronted with a shelf of unfamiliar wine lables, we're left to wonder what we should get based on the drinking occassion or our personal tastes. But smart wineries are starting to use QR Codes to help take away the mystery and bring the sommelier right to the palm of your hand. Check out what Cellar Key offers and below, a video from adegga - a social wine discover site.

Dynamic Wine Labels from andrerib on Vimeo.

 

Mobile Coupon Anyone?

Reach is inserting QR codes into their magazine ads and using them to push mobile coupons. Very interesting but in my opinion they got greedy and that greed will lower the value of the effort. First, they don't push you directly to a coupon, you have to click through from a very nicely done mobile splash site. But then when you do click through to get your coupon, they ask you to register. That's like 3-steps to save $1.00? Bye-bye.

 

Hello Trailer
Fox ran a 9-page ad unit in the Fall Style Issue of US Weekly (my wife had it on the plane so stop typing the Twitter joke please) that was pushing their fall line-up. At the bottom of each ad was a QR Code.

Now I had to wait until the plane landed to play with the code but as suspected, each code took you to a mobile friendly site that granted you access to all kinds of content, storylines and special content that was only available here.

My only suggestion to make this approach stronger would have been to anticipate my REAL desire for scanning the code -- to see a trailer that would give me a better idea of what the show was about. While insider content is a great value to the FAN of the show, a better idea of what the show is like or about is far more valuable for a PROSPECT of the show. Had they linked these codes to sites that had a 3 min trailer front and center I would have said - 100% WIN for Fox. As it is, still darn solid effort IMHO and such a perfect integration of QR codes and mobile.

 

 

So that's my round-up of QR codes in action this week. What did you think? Have you seen any really good applications I missed? Wish I'd add to this line of thought? Let me know. That's what the comment section is for... ok?

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