HP Digital Integrated Campaign

In what we're pretty sure is a first for the category in the UK, we recently launched a multimedia campaign for hp which is supported by a mobile website. The campaign is in-market in the UK at the moment and will follow soon in the Netherlands.

HP has launched some great new products recently that have features that don't fully come to life on a static image. We briefed Blue Star Mobile to put together a mobile site that shows the products in action and gives somes specifications. You can check out the sites on your phone or in your computer browser. The tx1000 is a laptop with a screen that swivels and becomes touch screen. The iPAQ 514 is hp's first 'phone'. Among other cool features it allows you to listen to your email.

The campaign integrates analogue and digital worlds through SMS response options on the print advertising and billboards. We're also running some mobile banners on Orange World in the UK.

The number of people who see the site is not likely to be vast. The cost of producing and distributing this kind of content, however, has dropped substantially over the last couple of years and it's now a pretty attractive addition to a conventional campaign.

Mobile Codes News

A fellow mobile enthusiast has pointed out that the Mobile Codes Consortium has recently annouced some new members. The addition of Nokia and O2 particularly give additional credibility to the group. This could be a big step forward for the technology.

The Mobile Codes Consortium is advocating creating standards for a technology for mobile phone barcodes that would allow for broad adoption. Mobile barcodes are a superior alternative to SMS shortcodes and could be major step in the development of the mobile web and an internet of things .

Mobile Codes Revisited Again

A reader/blogger from Quebec pointed out in a comment today that there has been new press about mobile barcodes related to Qode.

Qode is a technology developed by a UK company called Neomedia. It allows mobile phones to scan a customised, unique, barcode and then open a page in the phone's browser. It, along with competitive applications, has a lot of potential to increase the usage of the mobile web (and the 'real world wide web').

I'm not sure what relationship Qode has with ActivePrint and the Mobile Codes Consortium I wrote about in January .

I have managed, with relative ease, to install the Qode reader on my newly retired Nokia N80 (which wasn't supported by Active Print). It was a quick install and is a nice little piece of software. The example barcodes on the site were both quick and easy to use. Unlike the Active Print site, however, Qode does not offer the ability to make your own barcodes.

Yahoo! Local Search on the Road

Silicon.com has re-published a piece of news from their American cousins Cnet news about a Sat Nav company that will be offering Yahoo! Local Search listings as part of their service.

It's my impression that Sat Nav services have, for a long time, been able to tell you where the nearest gas station or fast food restaurant is. This sounds as though it will take things a good deal further, allowing users to search for all kinds of services.

It's a good example of the mobile web being overlayed on top of the real world.

Mobile Codes Revisited

I've been doing some digging and I see that the Mobile Codes Consortium mission statement is probably not the biggest announcement for European QR codes this week. Scott Shaffer has written a post on The Pondering Primate about relationship between Google and China Mobile.

Google will be providing search functionality to China Mobile users, many of whom will have QR code readers produced by a China Mobile subsidiary, pre-installed on their phones. Shaffer surmises that it won't be long before Google offers its users a QR coding service and I have to agree.

Google, beyond being the almighty technology brand, has a significant customer-base that already uses a web-based interface for pay-per-performance information organisation services. They could easily commercialise a pay-per-code or pay-per-scan service. The precise terms of the system might be a bit complicated (you couldn't limit the number of scans of a QR code the way that you can with SEM campaigns, for instance.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Mobile Codes Consortium Mission Statement Announced

I posted a couple of months ago about the work that was being done by Tim Kindberg at HP Labs in Bristol to promote a standardised approach to mobile barcodes.

One of the topics of conversation was a 'Mobile Codes Consortium' - a project to gain understanding and consensus across the different industries that are needed to make the technology work.

A reader has kindly pointed out that a mission statement for the consortium has been posted on the Active Print website.

If the consortium succeeds in creating enthusiasm within handset manufacturers and/or mobile networks I don't think there's any question that this technology could take off.

The media planners in the room in November were certainly excited about the technology. In the near future it could be very useful for a specific type of campaign that supports a strong brand and targets early adopters. In the medium to long term, direct response campaign planners will likely get excited about the opportunities as well.

I do think, however, that the technology has greater applications outside the conventional definition of advertising. There is a great deal of potential applications related to local search and mapping as well as dynamic packaging and in-store display.

There is still the considerable question of mass adoption of the technology on handsets. I have no doubt that this would be greeted with enthusiasm by media planners and that in some isolated ways we'll also be able to bring it about a little bit quicker.

Any thoughts?

Real World Wide Web

I was in a meeting with Tim Kindberg this week. He works for HP in research and development at the HP Labs in Bristol. One of his projects is physical hyperlinks. This is by no means a new technology - it's already been put to use by the BBC and won an award.

The idea is that physical objects could have a unique barcode printed on them that can be photographed by a mobile phone. The image leads to a unique reference point on the web which contains information. The technology was used as part of the BBC series Coast. Scenic walks were marked with posters that included these tags and linked to various pieces of information. You can learn more on the Active Print site.

There are a couple of barriers to this technology taking off. Having seen it in action, though, I'm much more convinced than I was. Properly integrated into phones it could be very easy to use and very useful. The phone tells you when you've succeeded in capturing the barcode - a major plus for usability.

There are, by the sounds of it, two major hurdles. The first is getting the appropriate software embedded into phones. The second is standardisation of codes.

This technology has all kinds of possible applications. The 'barcode' could, in theory, execute any number of activities on a phone. It could probably replace phone numbers on business cards, for instance.

It could definitely act as an easily traceable response mechanic on outdoor and ambient advertising. It could add real value to consumers and be easily trackable for media spend optimisation.

Some of the ideas that Tim covered were:

real time travel information at bus stops and on train platforms

in-store promotions

response mechanism on outdoor

incentive delivery on outdoor to increase footfall

map download from online to mobile

If you have another one, please feel free to comment...