Get ready for mobile coupons

A recent survey from Juniper Research says that mobile coupons will become very popular in a few years and retailers would send around 3 billion mobile coupons by 2011.

Mobile coupons, in my opinion, are a brilliant way for a retailer to connect to his customers directly. It is way more effective than the coupons you find in newspapers and magazines. Most people, including yours truly, often forget to make use of the coupon clips within the required timescale. I, for one, collect various coupons from newspapers and magazines but hardly make use of them because most of the times I forget to take them when I go shopping. With mobile coupons, there is no such problem. You get a coupon in your text message and all you have to do is show it to the retailer/shop owner the next time you shop for something. Since we always have our mobile phone with us, it becomes easier.

QR codes can be a good idea, but then you can’t expect everyone to have a mobile phone with camera facility to scan the ads. But still, it’s a very good technology that can be used effectively.

We’ve already seen some examples where mobile coupon campaigns have been quite successful and I think it will continue to be so. Like I’ve always said, the most important thing is to provide value to people. If you do so, you’ll always find takers.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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AT&T to support QR code based advertising

I’ve talked about the impact QR codes can have on mobile advertising already in this blog. Now, it seems Americans will have an opportunity to try it out. AT&T recently decided to support one such technology developed by Mobot, a Massachusetts based company.

With this technology, you can use your mobile phone camera to scan a barcode, logo, or picture and get something cool in return. It might be a discount coupon, some cool stuff to download, or a gift voucher. It is also said that depending on the response that AT&T gets, Verizon and T-Mobile might also follow suit.

Google is also very excited about this technology as it might help Google set its foot in print advertising. Google plans to place print ads with barcodes that can be scanned by mobile phone cameras. Google analytics tools will take note of things like how many people scanned the ad and what type of ads got noticed so that you, as a mobile advertiser, can get an idea of how well your ad campaign has performed.

I think this could be a terrific idea if executed well. As a mobile user, I’d always find it easier to scan an ad with my mobile camera and get the info I want as opposed to responding to a text message. What do you guys say?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Using QR codes in mobile advertising a good idea?

One of the stories that I read recently in a website caught my attention. It’s about using QR codes (Quick Response codes) in mobile advertising. Even I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time and the person who wrote that story almost stole the words from my mouth.

For those of you who don’t know – unlike other ordinary codes, the contents of a QR code can be scanned and decoded at a very high speed.

QR codes are very popular in countries like Japan and Korea but not so in the U.S. or even in Europe for that matter. In Japan and Korea, these QR codes in advertisements can be scanned and decoded by mobile phones. So, when you see an ad, you can simply scan the code with your mobile phone and it will take you to a hyperlink or WAP sites where you can get a wealth of information about the product/service mentioned in the ad.

More than 40% of mobile users in Japan use their mobile phones to scan QR codes in adverts regularly. In fact, a lot of mobile phones in Japan come preloaded with the application required to scan such codes. If not, the app can be downloaded from the internet without much trouble.

This has helped mobile advertisers a lot in Japan and Korea. Mobile users find it easier to scan codes to get information rather than having to send a text message or make a call. So, this minimizes effort on mobile users’ part and makes the job of the mobile advertiser easier than ever.

It would be great if U.S. and Europe can catch up with this technology, as it can be a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to reach out to end users without much trouble. I think this idea will get a great response from mobile users as well, as all they need to do is, take a snap of the ad with their mobile phone and get all the information they want. What do you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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