|
Is that the sound
of a new breakfast cereal? Nope, it's the sound of marketing happening
all around you! It's all about getting information into their hands when
they want it, how they want it - faster, faster, faster!
In the January
newsletter we touched the surface of QR Codes. But there are some other
amazing technologies making cell phones the primary information
dissemination conduit for marketers.
I did a little digging into Microsoft TAGS
and was pleasantly surprised these 2D codes have more flexibility in
design than QR Codes. The standard TAG is a sequence of colored
triangles, but you can also use images and actual photographs to make
them more interesting and visually appealing. (see below)
Microsoft TAGS
also have some great FREE reporting tools which MS improves upon
regularly. The TAG option also allows you to dynamically manage the
customer experience; sending them to one online location the first time
they scan and a new location the second time they scan, which is
currently not an option for standard QR Codes.
NFC or Near Field Communication
is another technology with some exciting marketing potential. It's been
around since 2004 and allows people with an NFC-enabled phone to simply
tap (or get close to) another phone or an NFC-enabled poster, POP
display or product tag to open up a web page, dial a phone number, see a
message, open a Vcard or download a mobile app. It's similar to
Bluetooth but you simply have to tap or be close to connect. Very cool
technology that's picking up speed. But we're waiting for hardware to
catch up to marketers (again!). Until NFC-enabled cell phones are
everywhere it's best to use NFC in conjunction with a TAG or QR code.
Snaptell, a cell phone app available for Android, Apple and Blackberry 9900, has marketers on the edge of their seats. The original  technology
was available as far back as 2008 as an Iphone app. With the app you
simply take a picture of an object; book, DVD, billboard, etc., and the
app will find you information on that object. Closest retailers,
comparative prices, etc., etc. Very powerful technology. Imagine a
billboard advertising the newest HD TV on the market. Snap a pic of the
billboard and you can find out where you can purchase it, who has it
cheapest, etc., etc. As far as marketing goes the results are a little
less predictable because we don't control all the information coming
into the phone . . . at least not yet . . . Oh, the wonderful world of technology. Where will it take us next? I can't wait to find out . . .
| 
