A venerable brand in the retail toy space is turning to mobile marketing for its newest campaign.

Delivering coupons directly to mobile devices, Toys “R” Us is heavily pushing scannable bar codes to help shoppers save at the point-of-sale.

According to a report from Mobile Commerce Daily, the company is running the mobile campaign within Us Magazine’s mobile site.

“These new mobile ads are part of the overall marketing campaign for Toys “R” Us and they complement our desktop display ads,” explains Meghan Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Toys “R” Us.

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Capital One has made a “Savvy” move into mobile territory.

This week, ShopSavvy – the mobile application popular for its barcode-scanning and price comparison capabilities – joined forces with Capital One for a new effort that should be pleasing to mobile-savvy shoppers.

Together, the partners are moving into personalized deals.

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The following is a guest post by Johannes Ahrenfelt, co-founder of 99SQUARED.

Are you thinking about marketing with QR codes? Take a look at this first.

When starting out using QR codes, companies sometimes make the same mistakes again and again. These mistakes not only cause businesses to lose out on profit but also, most importantly, ruin the consumer experience. This article will explain what some of the most common problems are and will suggest solutions that will ensure your marketing campaign with QR codes can carry on as you planned.

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Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Jared Reitzin, the CEO of mobileStorm, a Communication Service Provider (CSP) that provides digital marketing services including SMS, as well as mobile applications and secure communication technology for healthcare organizations.

Think about it, what other industry or company do you know of that charges you for service every month but you cannot start using the service for 4 months? Go ahead, I will give you a few minutes, please add your comments below. Can’t think of any? It’s because if a company like this existed, nobody would want to do business with them, and they wouldn’t be around for very long.

However if you have a monopoly on the space and people really needed your service to grow their business, they wouldn’t have a choice. For mobile marketers this may sound like familiar territory. We all know that mobile marketing through a short code is ultimately the best way to go. I’m not sold on QR codes yet as the user experience isn’t that great.

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QR codes are the hottest tools in mobile marketing today.

According to findings presented in the new Chief Marketer Mobile Marketing Survey, respondents steeped in marketing campaigns of all variety reveal that thy are “getting their messages into mobile primarily as a way to drive prospects or audiences to campaigns taking place elsewhere.”

To that end, a QR code is a magical thing.

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American Express is trying something innovative with their mobile efforts.

On Tuesday, the company launched what’s being hailed as an “industry first mobile offer engine.”

The program, says American Express, recommends and ranks relevant merchant offers in real time for US Cardmembers based on their spending history and location. All of this information is combined and presented in a so-called Cardmember’s “spend graph.”

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Groupon continues its evolution in the daily deal space, this week with the formal launch of Groupon Rewards nationwide.

Billed as a user friendly loyalty program for merchants, Groupon Rewards offers customers special “rewards” in return for their shopping loyalty.

After a successful pilot program in Philadelphia, Groupon Rewards is now open to U.S. merchants, regardless of whether or not the business has previously run a Groupon deal.

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