Myne

Questicon makes use of QR

       

We recently spotted that Canberra's interactive science and technology centre Questicon is making use of QR codes to provide more information to browsers. It's especially relevant since QR codes are themselves a subject for one particular exhibit called Perception Deception.

This is an application that we've talked about a lot.

It's a great way of connecting to more detailed content providing the back story, if you will. It also means that users can walk away with referenceable content after the fact - very useful indeed.

However in this case I just felt that the reward just wasn't strong enough. That is, the experience didn't really add anything. I think when used in these situations QR must link to content that provides more value - greater utility or entertainment. Think video content, location-based tools, mobile vouchers and so on.

Nevertheless good on you Questicon for getting stuck in, and my kids really enjoyed the exhibit. This is a must visit attraction in Canberra if you have kids by the way.

Google Place Rank and QR Codes

Really loved this Techcrunch post - Google has just snail-mailed 190,000 top local businesses with a qr code linking to content about the location. Retailers in turn can enable their local business center listing to display a coupon to turn casual browsers into action at the till.

Its great to see this smart use of the technology. Google has just made a giant leap towards establishing QR in the US market. Australia feels like a much better location to have trialled this with much greater QR awareness and penetration, yet I haven't we seen any retailers doing this yet off their own bat.

Time perhaps to at least trial it.

Another important concept we should all be aware of: The notion of Place Rank - an extension of Google Juice (page rank: a measure of how important a web page is) into the physical world. It's been around since 2007, but not that talked about. Detailed description here.

Game over for QR Codes in Australia? The evidence.

For some time now QR Codes have been off the radar. I've gone from having multiple conversations a week to one or two a month. They are still appearing in market (more often than not poorly executed), but the conversation has definitely slowed.

The only response I got back to the question above in the Twittersphere was simply "QR was never in the game" (thanks @holabendez), [which  highlights either an apathy issue or my serious dearth of followers, probably both].

But I digress, WOW! so is it game over for QR Codes in Australia, before it even really started?

Or is it possible that QR is going the same way as many nascent technologies, wallowing in the trough of disillusionment, ready to burst through into the mainstream?

Lets consider for a moment what are some of the barriers to widespread adoption of QR codes in Australia...

Tell Australia what you think at allofaus!

We recently launched a unique new programme for client Qantas - called allofaus.

Allofaus is a project designed to discover what makes Australia great...Is it our culture? Is it our people? Is it our determined spirit? Or is it something else entirely? It's a question with no single answer and a discussion that every Australian is invited to be a part of.

The AllofAus website is the home for this content and the programme leads up to a magazine keepsake in newspapers across Australia in the last week of July.

In addition to the website, submissions can also be made via SMS or M-site which also features celebrity video content.

The advertising campaign makes extensive use of Mobile activation tactics through SMS and QR codes and a multi-carrier mobile advertising buy drives additional traffic through the zero-rated M-site.

Be sure to check out the content visualisations on the website - these allow you to filter submissions to get different views of the data. Very cool (or at least we think so!)

Mobile Coupons and QR Codes set to take off

A Special Report in AdNews April edition, Bill and I both made the cut :-)
Grab a copy of mag as this is just one article in a nine page special feature. Good stuff AdNews.

Aussie 3G quietly climbs to 46%

 

Not yet being quoted by Mediasmart in media sales material, Telstra 3G penetration was placed at 54% in March by CEO Sol Trujillo. A quick scan around the other carriers indicates no change in their reported 3G numbers making a reported total at 46%, almost 10% higher than the government stats of 8.55M or around 37%.

Why is this important to marketers?
Our belief is that mobile is still largely a missed opportunity for marketers. In a market that's moving so quickly it's hard to get a good bead on the reality of course, that's why tracking like this helps. Still there remains a lot of very smart clients and agency folk who think that mobile is still too nascent.

Yet at the base level we continually see ad performance that is ten times better than web. In a market becoming more obsessed than ever with ROI that's got to be attractive right?

Mobile activation from traditional advertising is really taking off with consumers responding to ads "in the moment". Who still seriously believes that someone seeing an out of home ad will write down the url and remember to visit a web site? This is extreme inertia working against the advertiser and mobile helps to solves this.

An extension of this, QR codes, the latest so-called bleeding edge mobile technology is damned by naysayers as a "wait 2 years and see" tactic. The fact is that (with correct implementation) QR codes are CONSISTENTLY OUTPERFORMING other response channels sometimes by a large factor - we hope to share some data on this soon.

The fact is that our customers are still way ahead of the marketing industry in mobile. Some marketers  are working hard to close this gap.

Where do you stand?

Mgage: Mobile Activation and Measurement

Today marks the launch of a new Myne product called Mgage.

P&Gs Global Head of mobile recently stated that the long value chain of mobile needs to be simplified in order for marketers to start to embrace the channel. That's what Mgage is about.

Mgage is a tool that provides marketers with better access to the benefits of mobile - it's about getting better customer engagement with campaigns and driving better media efficiencies. Mgage works across two key dimensions:

1. Activation - mobilising traditional campaigns using interactive media tags (SMS keywords, QR codes and direct mobile urls). Nothing new in this except that we now have a tool that makes it easy to issue interactive media tags and then track, analyse and optimise multiple media types in real time. It's like adserving for atoms.

2. Content connection - a simple and cost effective mechanism for deploying content to mobile - whatever that content is: a test drive video, a retailer locator, a detailed product descriptor, a request for a sample.

Mgage has been pretty all consuming for the last few months as we have defined the vision, architecture, planning, production, licensing, and business processes - we're pretty happy with the results and we hope our clients are too.

Download mgage_media_release.pdf

For more information on Mgage email me.

[Sincere thanks to Matt H, Jacqui, Bill, Graham, Jeff, Matt N, and the rest of the team. SM]