Nissan  Motor Company has begun slapping QR codes on vehicle window stickers as so-called “silent salespeople” according to the company.

You’ve likely waited to visit a dealership after-hours to look at a vehicle you’re interested in simply to avoid being hounded by a salesperson.  Nissan recognizes this and hopes QR codes can help provide the information potential buyers want, without having to suffer through a salesman’s pitch.

The QR codes link users directly to a mobile optimized page that includes videos, features, vehicle inventory levels and more.  The codes work with any smartphone reader app and is first being offered on the 2012 Nissan Altima and Sentra lines.  The company plans to roll out the solution to its entire fleet eventually.

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Blue Bite and partner Pearl Media have launched what’s being called the first-ever NFC-enabled storefront in the U.S to promote TNT’s top-rated drama series Rizzoli & Isles.

The promotion is a highly integrated “crime-solving” campaign in New York City that began on June 27th and ran for one month.  The NFC technology is being provided by Blue Bite’s mTAG solution and will allow those walking by on the street to place their phone near an identifying marker on the storefront that “immediately immerses the person’s mobile phone into the experience.”  Content being delivered includes a “unique and exclusive” mobile game, an opt-in “tune-in reminder” for the show, a unique and custom wallpaper and a video trailer of the show.

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Location-based mobile marketing provider Placecast has unveiled a new self-serve option of its popular “ShopAlerts” platform.

We’ve covered Placecast’s ShopAlerts service quite a bit on MMW, and it’s gained significant traction since its introduction.  The service has garnered big-name clients like The North Face and AT&T who want to leverage the latest concepts in location-based marketing.  With the new self-serve version, merchants can now create, deliver and track redemption of mobile promotions via a simple Web-based portal.

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Group-buying powerhouse Groupon sent an email to users over the weekend outlining changes to its terms of use and privacy policies.  The most important of which relates to how the company is collecting and using mobile location data and the breadth of information now collected on users of its service.

“If you use a Groupon mobile app and you allow sharing through your device, Groupon may collect geo-location information from the device and use it for marketing deals to you (and for other purposes listed in the ‘How Groupon Uses Personal Information’ section of the Updated Privacy Statement),” the email said.  The company also said that these changes “address some new types of business relationships the company is forging and new technologies it is implementing or may use.”

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AdMob is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its acquisition by Google, and is announcing some impressive statistics as a result.

In total, AdMob traffic has grown by over 3.5 times over the past year.  In April alone, the ad network was processing over 2.7 billion requests per day — up from just over 2 billion in January.  In addition, the company said there are now over 80,000 mobile Websites and apps in the AdMob network, up from over 50,000 in January.  Ad requests are coming from 11 total countries, the company said, which is up from just three a year ago.

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In a first-of-its-kind launch, Blue Bite — the leading proximity marketing provider in the US — has teamed with digital media provider Reach Media Group to deploy an NFC-enabled Digital-Out-of-Home Network in the U.S.

The move is the first part of a long-term strategy to bring this interactive mobile medium to RMG’s entire network footprint of 75,000 digital-out-of-home (DOOH) screens over the next 6 months.  At the heart of the massive launch is a new platform dubbed “mTag,” which facilitates a variety of interactions between brands and consumers by leveraging DOOH screens in venues to drive user action on their mobile devices.  Powered by NFC and QR Codes, mTAG will enable the delivery of rich content, drive mobile application downloads, transmit coupons and offers, facilitate purchases and participation in rewards/loyalty programs.

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NAVTEQ LocationPoint, the location-aware ad-network from the leading GPS provider, has published the results of its first hyper-local ad campaign targeting millions of users of the Poynt mobile application running on Android, Blackberry and iOS.

In a series of campaigns, NAVTEQ LocationPoint delivered location- and contextually-aware ads to Poynt users actively conducting related searches.  The initial campaign featured hyper-local ads for national gas station and restaurant brands throughout the United States.  All four campaigns performed three to five times better than the industry average click-through rate of .49% with an average CTR of 2.68% across campaigns.  Post-click user engagement ranged from 4.49% to as high as 11.25%, depending on advertiser.

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