Pepsi’s 400M Mobile Barcodes Push QR into Europe
Posted by dena on Dec 26, 2008 in Mobile Marketing, SMS / Text
Mobile barcodes (aka QR, or Quick Response codes) are old news in Japan and Korea, but they haven’t made it big in Europe or the US just yet. The Telegraph reported today that the tech is getting a big PR push in Britain, thanks to Pepsi. How long will it be until the scanning tech hits America?
QR codes are basically simple graphics that can be scanned with mobile phones to hyperlink to a variety of digital content. In Japan, they’re used to scan just about anything — from a print ad promotion to a product at a store to Grandmother’s gravestone (yes, really.)
Justin filled us in on the global impact of QR over the year, noting that the technology is gaining traction in the mobile marketing world, especially in Asia. In Europe, the tech hasn’t quite taken off. But that may change now that Pepsi is on the scene.
Mass beverage distributor Pepsi recently unveiled a major QR push in Britain, printing over 400 million mobile barcodes on its products for the first time. These codes over the mobile savvy instant access to games, videos, websites, prizes and other entertainment at the swipe of a phone.
This isn’t the first QR product in Britian, but Pepsi’s promotion is the first time a major company has employed the technology on such a scale, reports The Telegraph. The technology is “poised to revolutionise the British consumer landscape following the launch of the first major QR code marketing campaign in the UK.”
This week, Bena Roberts of GoMo predicted that in 2009 there will be an “all out war” in “the fight for mobile barcode supremacy” amongst the players. Mobile barcode companies NeoMedia, Scanbuy, UpCode, Mobiqa all landed big deals in 2008.
Johann | Dec 27, 2008 | Reply
If you would like to generate QR-Code barcodes yourself — I have a free QR Code generator. I hope you find it useful.
Mark Hendriksen | Dec 28, 2008 | Reply
Yes, it’s certainly true that Asia was the first to embrace the technology and they got traction because of the support of the Japanese Govt. and the likes of NTTDoCoMo which meant every phone was subsequently made to read a QR Code (like the one in the Pepsi Campaign.)
However, the use of QR was a choice made for the Asian market (and their enormous alphabet, Kanji, which meant they needed a larger code to contain more data and therefore readers to accommodate that.
There’s lots to discuss here as ‘Mobile Codes’ gain traction in Europe and the USA. But, to make this a success for business, and the consumer, it also needs to be able to more than simply connect you to a url (www). So, then this requires a far better understanding of a) the possibilities and b) the mechanics.
At the moment as it catches on, for example here in the UK, there is still a lot of educating to be done. WHilst Pepsi have taken a great initiative the use of a QR has meant using a lot of space on the can to just connect you to a www who’s content changes daily – great marketing but… had they used say, a DM code (DataMatrix) they could have achieved the same marketing success within 40% of that space.
Because it happened in Japan first – it doesn’t necessarily follow that the first is automatically to be assumed to be the best and only way for the present and future outside of Japan – and to make this succeed business needs to make or save money using Mobile Barcodes and look beyond the ‘wow’ factor to integrated solutions i.e. track and trace, brand protection, crm, one to one marketing – the list goes on.
So well done Pepsi for being so pioneering and taking the initiative – and to quote an Ol’ Blue Eyes song – “The Best is Yet to Come.”
Happy New Year.
Mark Hendriksen
CEO
UpCode Mobile Solutions
amrith | Jan 1, 2009 | Reply
Isn’t this the same as the thing called QCat that bombed in the US. Or at least, QCat for mobile phones?
Mark Hendriksen | Jan 1, 2009 | Reply
In answer to both the comments a) Anyone can generate free codes but there are limitations so look beyond ‘decoding’ + b) QCat comment – Amrith, are you serious!? Get up to speed on what’s been going on since then and you’ll find that the technology has moved on big time – and when you see the difference please do post a comment again to clarify for others too – thks.
Douglas | Jan 16, 2009 | Reply
I really do like it when everyone misses the point! The point of the Pepsi campaign was to increase interactivity with consumers. Having done hundreds of mobile executions on-pack – I can say with certainty that this campaign will perform appallingly badly. The incentive is some quite boring content and almost no-one has a QR code reader. Usually a very good promotion will pull 3% response off pack. Using the code will reduce this by at least 90%. Not good for Pepsi. One question to you Barcode guys. Is it easier or harder to text PEPSI to a short code and get a WAP push sent back linking to the content? More non tech people at brands being pushed down a wasteful route by people who have a “tech for techs sake” agenda.