Don’t You Wanna Scan Me: Quick Response and Mobile Marketing

Remember what a big deal it was when people started renting out foreheads to advertisers (I know, how shamelessly capitalistic). But it was bold and effective. “Headvertising”, as was coined by the founder – Justin Kapust, had two strong attributes: it was eye-catching (and possibly offending), and it was mobile.
We’ve come a long way since then. The advancements and adoption of mobile technology has taken mobile marketing from foreheads to more sophisticated depths. Gone are the days when a walking advertisement was a guy in a chicken suit or a logo on a forehead. Today, marketing messages can be targeted, molded for specific audiences, dynamic, visual and more mobile than ever because they go wherever your market goes.
The advent of Text messaging and it’s popularity had us marketers in an excited tizzy (as we tend to get) and led to the swift introduction and somewhat bastardization of text message marketing.
The evolution of mobile devices continues at the speed of light and consumers are progressively harder to attract and engage. Mobile marketing has to evolve just as fast and as creatively to keep up.
One of such mobile marketing evolutions is the rising trend in Quick Response Codes (QR Codes), a square-shaped, two-dimensional matrix barcode that can be read with barcode readers and with (drum roll please) smart phones. Why is this exciting?
SCAN ME

Well, QR Codes were originally designed by Denso-Wave (a Toyota subsidiary) for tracking vehicle manufacturing parts. It proved a helpful resource because large amounts of information in the form of text, URLs and other data could be embedded in the QR Codes and then scanned to quickly (quickly= under 1 minute) encode the information using a scanner or a Smart Phone.
QR codes are wildly popular in Japan and South Korea however, the west is just beginning to catch up.
So what does this mean for Marketers?
The QR Code allows marketers to construct integrated marketing campaigns that marry online and offline media and effectively reach their target. The QR Code allows for inexpensive marketing budgets, and engaging audiences in an interactive way. And for those of us with bolder and riskier ideas, the QR Code has just become our favorite new toy.
Until next time folks, think moving targets – the tools are in place to reach them.

KBG~
www.keyboardgorilla.com