Canadian Marketing Blog

'Hey Billboard.....Say Cheese!'

Starting this month, US retailers will help consumers use their smartphones to experience Japanese-style point-and-shoot shopping. Luxury goods company Ralph Lauren is putting a bar code, called a QR (or Quick Response) in their company's store windows and on print ads and catalogues.

QR codes were created way back in 1994 and are widely used in Japan by millions of mobile phone users. They simply swipe their handsets over the codes on said media and are linked to websites with additional information and, of course - to shop.

In Europe, a company called BlueCasting offers a Bluetooth-based system to download video clips and music from codes printed on otherwise ordinary looking movie posters.

Ralph Lauren uses the technology, boasting it is the first US luxury goods manufacturer to offer it that links consumers directly to their website - no typing, no hassle. They alsy have a handy Q&A section on their website explaining how it works.

Retailers will no doubt be looking to see if the technology is driving incremental sales or merely offering up an alternative channel. I'm sure Bluecasting will have lots of interesting post holiday results to share.

The QR technology has been flourishing in places like Japan, so I've been wondering myself whether it would take off in Canada. I'm sure it would. Once the phones here are set up for it all we need to do is educate properly, just once, and it could be a unique way of pushing urls and promotions. Not the prettiest coupon ever, but still interactive.

Rob
Phil and Brady have talked about this before... QR does provide a new powerful communication dimension

hoping we might hear from someone in the telco sector
to let us know when this capability will come to Canada

cheers
Miro

The technology is still in its infancy in Canada and is Japanese based (limited reach into our market so far), but there are good examples of companies using QR in Canada: including Vespa Canada. (www.http://www.vespacanada.com/company/news.cfm?NID=131).

Hopefully we'll see more companies leverage the technology here and in the US.

After spending a lot of time in Japan on business I've seen this first hand. There are even some companies that design these barcodes into different symbols or icons - but they are still fully functional. A great way to 'brand' all your products ... what's interesting is that when you swipe your phone over the product with the barcode it will show you more information about where the product was made, materials, etc. Maybe we'll see this on groceries one day where you'll put your phone over a bunch of carrots and it will tell you when they were picked, grown, etc.

Thxs for the update Rob. I realize that Canada has yet to rollout the technology into the cellphones/berries here

Was hoping to get a sense of the rough timeline for introduction ...later this year, 2 years from now, 3 years???

the added communication and marketing capabilities are impressive as Daniel noted - or any google search on QR codes will reveal.

cheers
Miro

The technology is in fact in use in Canada -- sort of. BlooZone is a European group doing roughly the same thing (although it is "push" rather than "pull" based.
We worked through their Canadian reps (Influencemedia, mark tute -- mark@influencemedia.com) to use the technology for our Halloand client. However, Mark mentioned a number of Canadian companies that were using the technology

QR codes can easily be made (google 'QR Code Generator') and you can read them with fre software for the blackberry or any camera phone for that matter...

It's about time Canada got into the mobile space with some cool tech...