If you have ever been to Japan or Korea there are good chances that you have come across tons of people sticking out their cellphone in front of posters/groceries/consumer electronics etc. Your immediate reaction on seeing this would probably be “Whoa!!! Am I in a cellphone obsessed nation or are these guys plain insane?”. Well the news is that the folks are miles away from being insane, in fact they are doing something really smart to instantly get information on their mobile about any product/service they see around. Confused??? Look at the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see, by just pointing the camera at the Quick Response(QR) code and snapping a picture, one can instantly get information about anything that is embedded within the code. For instance: On taking a picture of  a QR code/ Mobile barcode on a Pepsi bottle, information like number of calories, different flavours available and an option for entering Pepsi contest can be immediately displayed on the mobile screen. Some phones also come with inbuilt QR code scanners so one can just swipe their mobile over the code. Either ways, mobile barcodes surely open up a world of opportunities as consumers can interact with the brand in real time.

European countries have been slow at embracing this technology despite its apparent mobile marketing success in Japan and other Asian countries. However, The Telegraph reported that Pepsi is driving a major QR campaigh in Britain, printing over 400 million QR codes on its products for the first time. Using these mobile users will get instant access to games, videos, websites, prizes and other entertainment by just swiping their cellphone. This is surely going to reshape the way we think about mobile marketing in UK. I hope pepsi and others overcome the hurdles of educating the not-so-mobile-savvy customers on using these codes and also dealing with those customers who are likely to complain about data charges.

If you are an iPhone user, its highly likely that you use one of the free News applications available in the Apple app store. Be it BBC, Fox News, New York Times, McClatchy; all of them have an application of their own which iPhone users can download free of cost. The latest news firm to join this bandwagon is USA Today giving consumers access to latest news, headlines, interactive polls, photos and weather.

Now the question arises at a time when print media advertisement revenues are nose diving, why on earth would New channels indulge in charity? Or is it that they make money by some other means?

The two word answer to this is “Mobile Marketing”.  News channels either use inhouse advertising  or private mobile marketing agencies  like jumptap, admob etc to fill their apps with advertisements. So let’s say for instance you are reading an article about  “The future of hybrid cars”, a small pop up within the app may prompt you to visit Toyota Prius website. This results in traffic being driven to Toyota hybrid car site which the company can capitalize on and generate sales.  Toyota Prius ofcourse in this case returns the favour by paying news channels big money.

All this sounds like the right way to go considering the reports from major news channels about their constantly decreasing print media revenue. Mobile Marketing is certainly helping a few firms shake away the recession jitters by adopting innovative marketing techniques.