Comments on: Pepsi’s 400M Mobile Barcodes Push QR into Europe

By: QR Codes in 2009…03.23.09 « The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian’s Weblog

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:28:55 +0000

[...] QR as well as some large-scale mobile campaigns that were centered around using QR… As Adena reported on last month, Pepsi introduced one of the first large-scale QR-based mobile campaigns to date in Europe, with [...]

By: Douglas

Douglas — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:52:28 +0000

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.

By: Mark Hendriksen

Mark Hendriksen — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:14:30 +0000

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.

By: amrith

amrith — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:48:12 +0000

Isn’t this the same as the thing called QCat that bombed in the US. Or at least, QCat for mobile phones?

By: Mark Hendriksen

Mark Hendriksen — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:51:07 +0000

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

By: Johann

Johann — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:35:33 +0000

If you would like to generate QR-Code barcodes yourself -- I have a free QR Code generator. I hope you find it useful.