Despite encouraging signs in 2010, there were many who just believed that QR Codes, or mobile bar codes, were purely an interim technology waiting for the newer, funkier technologies such as NFC and augmented reality to get their act together and take over. But, as is the way, this hasn’t happened yet. Sure, things have progressed, but they still do not yet offer compelling reasons for mobile manufacturers/networks to make the investment to universally include them. This is due to, amongst other things, some interoperability issues between Wikitude and Layar technology, the debate over user interfaces and the pros and cons of real-time versus cached data.

So what has happened?

Not surprisingly, purely due to the number of handsets sold, Android has become the pre-eminent OS when it comes to QR code usage (youscan.me)

What will be interesting to watch — given Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola and its investment in the Android OS — is the potential development of technologies that will combine scanning with geolocation and local search. The mind boggles as to the possibility of even more targeted advertising and response driven communication that will, ultimately, become mass market and of the greater good.

The US has finally woken up to the potential.

Finally! The land of “cellular” has realised the potential of QR and mobile barcodes. The US has witnessed phenomenal growth. If we look at Q1/2011 vs Q4/2010 and also at overall global growth, we can see that the top cities in the world for scanning usage are: Tokyo (in fact several wards of Tokyo on their own feature in the top 10), New York, Houston, London, Chicago, LA, Seattle and Moscow, showing the importance of the US in this arena. (i-nigma.com)

1. United States (181.1%)

2. UK (166.5%)

3. Netherlands (146.3%)

4. Spain (94.4%)

5. Canada (94.0%)

The growth of the “coupon” through sites like Groupon has helped push this. If we look at why US Consumers are using this technology we can see the importance of the “deal”. In other areas, we are now seeing QR codes being used to amuse, not just for transactions or to provide information.

The recent campaign in the US for Victoria’s Secret is pure, utter genius and a superb demonstration of how to take technology to a whole new territory.

The technology as the joke is, as Mastercard® would say, priceless.

The US Postal Service ran a campaign earlier this year encouraging users to utilise QR codes. The QR code promotion offered commercial mailers an upfront 3% discount on the prices for First-Class Mail and Standard Mail letters, which included a QR code inside or on the mail.

According to their data nearly one third of all Standard Mail in the past two months contained a QR code (multichannelmerchant.com)

So what is next?

From ‘umble origins it has grown. QR codes are easy to integrate into products and relatively inexpensive to print and produce, especially when compared to NFC systems that need a whole heap of associated tech to work. QR codes have also been around for a while now, so consumers (well, over 30% of smartphone users mghus.com) know what to do with them.

Marketers are waking up to the fact that QR codes are a very easy way of disseminating much more information than can be encapsulated in a simple print ad, and Smartphone penetration is proliferating at a phenomenal rate, helping to fuel this growth.

Top 10 users of mobile barcodes during Q1/2011 (excluding Japan)

(1) 1. United States

(2) 2. Italy

(3) 3. Germany

(7) 4. United Kingdom

(8) 5. Netherlands

(6) 6. Canada

(5) 7. France

(4) 8. Hong Kong

(17) 9. Spain

(15) 10. Switzerland

() – Position in Q4/2010

(youscan.me)

And things just got smarter

Sites and apps that will generate QR codes with in-built Google Analytics are springing up left, right and centre. How much longer will it be before they will incorporate Omniture or Hitwise coding? It is only a matter of time. Suddenly these seemingly clunky boxes or circles of squiggles become a meaningful, trackable marketing tool.

The wrap

IMHO QR codes are not going to just fade quietly into the ether. More and more ways will be found to use them to link the real to the virtual, to generate and analyse response, to track consumer behaviour, to disseminate more product information, to tease and to tempt.

And all this is currently achievable with technology available in your smartphone today.

What might the future bring? If I could predict that I would be a rich man but I can only see a future where the lines between real and virtual are increasingly blurred.

If I wait another 9 12 months before another update I hope I’m still writing about the advancements in QR code technology and usage. But knowing how quickly tech moves, I doubt it.

The reality is that mobile is fast becoming the primary screen and communications tool for business people*. But many marketers are under the false impression that their prospects won’t be receptive to business messages when they’re in a mobile frame of mind. They think they’re more interested in catching up with the news, consuming entertainment and updating their status on multiple social networks. This means there’s no opportunity for commercial messages and that nobody wants a relationship with a company through their most personal of devices. Or, do they?

Well the answer is a resounding “YES”. Mobile is all-pervasive and the de facto way people communicate, do tasks, socialise and conduct business. So it is the obvious channel to reach the people that matter. But before you run headlong into developing a shiny new mobile app, here are are few pointers to ensure you don’t fall at the first hurdle:

1. Don’t treat mobile like traditional online communications. Driving your prospects to downloading a whitepaper just isn’t going to work. So, consider the screen real estate that you have to work with and the way people consume content. Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, so a series of 5 minute podcasts will probably work better than a 50 page Forrester report.
2. If you thought privacy was important on the desktop, with mobile you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s as personal as the computer is ever going to get. So pushing out uninvited marketing messages and SMS just won’t work. Ensure you use a phased approach to engage with the prospects at an intrinsic level – appeal to their intellectual side, their need for relationship and provide entertainment. Only once you’ve established this can you mix in a layer of commercial promotion.
3. Think about how you’re going to get them engaging via their mobiles. So consider how you’ll convert from email to mobile, off the printed page with QR codes and through social networks. After all, you can build a clever app but it doesn’t mean that people will use it (most apps are only used once).
4. If you can’t make doing business with your company over mobile devices better, faster and easier, don’t even bother. Don’t try to squeeze your company website onto a mobile device. Instead think what people need from you when they’re on the move and prioritise that content and functionality. So, stuff that’s location specific, support oriented and socially shareable should come to the fore.

The above are just a few pointers. If you’d like to discuss how mobile can be used to enhance your media strategies or extend your marketing communications, drop me a line at michael@b1.com

And finally, if you want to find out more about mobile marketing and how you should be using it today, we’ll be hosting the Banner Mobile Webinar on 1st June at 3pm GMT. If you haven’t already, you can register for this free event here. I’ll be joined by Christina Carstensen, Director of Mobile Strategy at IDG Global Solutions, for this quick-fire session as we explore:

• Key mobile stats and trends
• Future technologies you need to plan for
• How mobile strategy can be incorporated alongside your marketing strategy
• How to maximise social elements
• Practical examples from real-world case studies
• And, the all important measurement and ROI

To join us for what’s sure to be an informative and stimulating discussion, simply click here to register.

* Mobile as “first screen” for all web usage by 2013 – Gartner, 2010

We held another successful Huddle over at the Banner offices yesterday. The subject was all things mobile. And, over the course of the next few blog posts, I’ll be taking you through some of the insights from the various speakers who generously gave their time to make the afternoon such a success:

• Simon Silvester – EVP Head of Planning, Y&R EMEA
• Christina Carstensen – Director of Mobile Strategy, IDG
• Matt Findel-Hawkins – Sales Director, Nikkei BP Europe
• Mark Challinor – Director of Mobile, Telegraph Media Group

Here are a few initial out takes and general trends from the sessions:

• QR codes – they’re on every flat surface in Japan and will become a core component to bridge the gap between print and mobile marketing
• Near Field Communication (NFC) is coming, you already use it in your Oyster cards. And, once built into your mobile devices, it will be used for payment, couponing, events, etc.
• Don’t ignore SMS, it’s still a powerful medium and can be the best first step to get your audience engaging via their mobile devices
• Augmented Reality – as more phones are enabled with the software, marketers will need to seize the opportunity to market in this new view of the real world
• Location-based services will become ever-more important. Where content and experience must be relevant to the person’s location.
• When developing a mobile strategy, don’t start by thinking “What do I want to say?” instead think about how mobile can enhance your service or extend your proposition.
• Mobile CRM – marketers will need to think of new ways to engage with their audience over the whole customer life cycle.
• Mobile should be used to help your customers and prospects. Reality is that many people will prefer support through their mobile rather than face-to-face interaction.
• Mobile will be the primary screen for social media. But be aware that people’s mindsets are different when in “socialising” mode compared to “buying” mode. So you’ll need to engage through these channels rather than push your message.
• When advertising on mobile, response rates and engagement rates are much higher than computer-based interaction. So, make sure you take advantage of the “newness” of the medium. And, video engagement is six times more effective on the small screen.
• But, just don’t do any mobile advertising until you’ve sorted out an optimised mobile destination. And, make sure you don’t just make your website suitable for the smaller screen, think about the content and functionality people actually need when they’re on the move.
• If you haven’t integrated mobile into your event and trade show strategies, then you’re really missing an opportunity to engage with your prospects.

One case study was the Uninvited DIY Exhibition at MoMA New York, where visitors to the art gallery were able to see a number of additional “unofficial” exhibits through their iPhone and Android handsets. A nice way of blurring the lines between physical and virtual environments.

Well, this got me thinking. The price of a stand at CeBIT or Mobile World Congress will cost many thousands of pounds. So, why not geo-tag an area in the event e.g. meeting zones, and set-up a virtual exhibition stand. Just have some company representative manning the area, hand out some flyers with the location of the stand and a QR code to download your Layar plug-in. And, you’re good to go. A nice guerrilla way to get some stand-out and save lots of money.

Image courtesy of Layar

With the B2B marketing crowd getting increasingly excited about All Things Mobile, we’ve been asking ourselves what we should be doing about our online content, to make it accessible through multiple devices, particularly our blog.

I thought it was high time we took action, so I had a look at our analytics to find out exactly which types of mobile devices were used to access our site, what percentage of our overall traffic they represented, and what the growth rates were.

As it happens, b1.com mobile traffic in Q4 2010 represented less than 3% of the total. I have to admit, I was expecting more. But what struck me was that the amount of mobile traffic nearly doubled between the beginning of October and the end of November. That’s 8 weeks. The rest of our visitor traffic was growing much more slowly, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens this year.

Luckily, we’re doing something about it before the numbers become significant — especially since innovators, early adopters and key influencers are likely to be those demanding a seamless web experience when they’re on the move.

Come and see us

So having said this, we’d like to invite you to have a go; grab your iPhones (or BlackBerry or Android smartphones), come back and visit our blog and tell us what you think.

Does it work for you? Is it fast enough? Want us to mobile-fy the rest of b1.com? Your feedback is much appreciated.

TTFN — happy browsing!

First, we’ve added a ‘related posts’ section to the bottom of every post (using YARPP). It’s incredibly easy to install and use and depending on the weightings you choose, can tighten or widen the net as necessary.

Secondly, we’ve added a ‘Tweet’ and ‘Like’ button to the top of each post as we felt that the buttons on the left-hand sidebar were perhaps not prominent enough. What do you think?

Finally, we’ve installed MobilePress on the blog to make the site more accessible to iPads, iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, and Android devices. It’s a vanilla theme (we’re working on a new skin), but we’d love to know whether or not you find it useful; you can check it out here. (Of course, if you’re on a mobile device, you should already be seeing it, and if you don’t, please try clearing your cache).

Microsoft’s ebullient Steve Balmer literally charging back into the fray with MS phone 7 which, I’m kinda shocked to say, seems to be getting rave reviews. Android showing its mettle with some decent looking kit like the new Motorola CLIQ XT and the inevitably slick UI we’ve come to expect. In addition, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote on Google Goggles and the emerging augmented realityspace was great. Apple, in true brand fashion, deigning not to attend but still able to cause a monumental buzz with the runaway success of the AppStore. And Nokia? Despite the much-hyped but largely panned collaboration with Intel on a new mobile OS called MeeGo, Nokia unveiled no new devices at all which is a first at MWC. Rather they chose to extol (or is that excuse?) the virtues of their Ovi store which seems unable to slow the galloping success of AppStore. This piece of YouTube brilliance highlights the common perception.

As the mobile space seems, momentarily, to be fixated on applications, MWC was awash with hundreds of companies trying to muscle in. The recurring theme? A concern surrounding the lack of standards in the application space and the complexity that is causing throughout the mobile ecosystem. Manufacturers, understandably, seem slow to adopt a common standard and all are trying to desperately nurture a developer network to mimic Apple. However, operators and network providers are trying to lasso developer communities together (check out the Wholesale Application Community to see just how big that groundswell could become) in a direct assault on Apple.

So despite the obvious allure of Barcelona at any time of the year, Mobile World Congress 2010 appears to have been a real barnstormer. Two predictions. MWC 2011 will definitely be even more engaging as the mobile space continues to evolve so frenetically. London weather in February 2011 will be just as shyte. I’ve begun begging for my ticket already.

At the risk of being burned at the stake, I believe not. There is nothing in the iPhone launch announcement to suggest it will create market disruption. Sure, the iPhone looks beautiful. The user experience looks promising (unless you like texting one handed). And yes, it can do clever things. But nothing disruptive. Nothing to unsettle the status quo in the way iTunes unsettled the music industry. Nothing so different that you can’t wait for the end of your contract before binning your existing handset. And nothing to warrant the enormous pricing burden the iPhone will have to carry.

Apple are facing stiff competition this time. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson may not all have the cache of Apple, but they are much beefier brands than the rag bag of competitors Apple whitewashed in the MP3 market. However, my heretic view is not founded on the relevant strengths of phone brands (even though we do work for Nokia). It is based on the dynamics of the industry. Among Nokia’s many reasons for success are their relationships with network operators around the world, their supreme global logistics operation, and their sheer economy of scale. Apple have none of these. Someone put me right here, but Apple are not exactly renowned for their partnership skills either? I can only imagine the scene when they realise the network operators have a compulsion for instructing manufacturers which features must go into their next product.

Of course, many of the faithful will queue overnight to satisfy their addiction to own all things shiny and Apple. At the launch, Mr Jobs proudly reminded devotees that there are 100 million iPods in the world. He omitted to mention the two billion Nokia mobile devices in the world, with the Finns adding to them at a rate of 350 million in 2006 alone.

So if you guys in Cupertino aren’t realistically expecting to take on Helsinki, what are you expecting to do? Is this a defensive manoeuvre against MP3 players in phones? If it is, you are one tardy bunch of Californians. Or is it the realisation that much of your future business will be wrapped up in mobile computing…of which voice communication is a critical component? Or are you hiding an industry disruption up your sleeve which will yet turn the entire market upside down?

I guess whatever your answer, it will be a reflection of your faith.

Few topics have inspired as much animated conversation within the agency recently as the launch of the iPhone. There are even rumours – which I can neither confirm nor deny – that two senior Banner executives have staked a reasonably hefty sum of money on whether or not Apple will still be in the mobile phone business in three years’ time.

Attitudes so far seem to fall into three main camps:

• Apple has a new shiny product and I want one. It’s a mobile phone? It doesn’t matter, I want one anyway.

• The iPhone is offering some radically new ideas (e.g. the touch-screen interface) that will shake up the industry.

• The iPhone is a niche offering that isn’t going to keep Nokia awake at night.

I think there are questions about the scale of Apple’s ultimate ambition. And I suspect it will slowly dawn on the world through this year what a massively powerful and resourceful global distribution machine Nokia has built – with an concomitant acknowledgement of what an under-appreciated asset this machine is.

I also think there’ll be a rueful admission from Apple that, yes, the mobile business has turned out to be altogether trickier than we anticipated. In the short term it’s going to be very interesting to see how the Apple-Cingular (or should that now be Apple-AT&T?) relationship plays out.

In the long-term – in the unlikely event that anyone is interested — my personal hunch is that the iPhone is the last huzzah of the old order. It’s an old-fashioned way of doing things i.e. a walled garden hermetically-sealed black-box approach.

When the iPhone was announced, someone at Banner sent an excitable email suggesting that this should become the agency’s standard mobile device. To which our esteemed Financial Director sent a tart reply: “On your bike.”

In conclusion, therefore, I have to say, firstly, I think our Financial Director is bang-on. Secondly, I’d be very interested in seeing the Apple iBike. Now that could really be something and, as we all know, Apple is no longer just a computer company.

1. The news that North Korea has test-detonated a nuclear bomb, or

2. The realisation that, in the near future, people everywhere will be watching TV clips on their mobiles and annoying the hell out of other people who are trying to get on with their lives?

If, like me, you think the answer is 2, then the news coming out of this week’s Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) won’t make you feel much better. The show appears obsessed with TV. Last year, yet again, it was HDTV; this year, it’s the many different ways to get TV onto your mobile, not to mention IP-enabled TV sets.

“He had as much imagination as a pint-pot,” Shelley once said of his fellow-poet Wordsworth, and he wasn’t being complimentary. Sifting through the announcements from CES, I’m starting to think a similar lack of imagination must apply to leaders of technology companies.

Is this obsession with TV the best the consumer tech industry can come up with? Why are all these companies working so hard to turn us into a planet of brain-addled passive consumers, agog for whatever digital entertainment dull media companies condescend to pipe through to us?

The message appears to be this. We are going to hell in a hand-cart but, luckily, the hand-cart is now fitted with a SlingBox. And we’re meant to be grateful?