AT&T's Magazine a Missed Opportunity

I just received a "magazine" from AT&T . A glossy, well produced 16 page piece that promotes their services and the benefits of all you can do with the iPhone, and their network. What a great opportunity to integrate 2D barcodes to make the print piece interactive, engaging and more measurable.

Unfortunately AT&T missed the chance. It could have been a great showcase for code scanning and helped illustrate AT&T's leadership in this space. I see AT&T's banners for their code scanning services multiple times per day on mobile marketing newsletters, blogs and websites. How come they could not integrate it here?

There are obvious places in the magazine that could have benefited from a 2D code linking users to more information. One of the best, were the examples of different events around the world. It would have been great to be able to see the YouTube video of any of these. Rather than read through the narrative. Let me get to the video. Through that they would have demonstrated the benefits of code scanning, mobile data plans, the iPhone, etc. Of all companies, AT&T should be out front on making their advertising mobile friendly and mobile enabled. They have so much to gain as other advertisers embrace mobile marketing.

Please AT&T, make it happen next time around.

Mini Cooper Wired QR Code Ad

It is great to see that Mini Cooper based their March 2011 Wired Magazine ad on a QR code. But unfortunately, form did not follow function. The ad looks interesting, funky and hip. But Mini's ad agency overlooked some of the basic requirements to allow the code to be readily scanned and used.


As a result, many people who try to scan this wont be successful, may get frustrated and won't download their app. Even with lots of experience reading 2D codes, I had trouble and almost gave up. I even wondered if it actually was a live code. Here are a few of the reasons for the problems.

Not enough quiet zone: QR codes are supposed to be printed with a minimum of 2 module wide quiet zone, which is a blank space between the edge of the code and any printing or border. In this ad, there is less than one module of space. Notice the very thin white border. Far too little for most code readers to find the code.

Printing close to the spine of the magazine: If normally held, the right part of this code will be obstructed by page to the right of it.

Curvature of the magazine: given the size of the code it is hard to get the code flat, when QR codes are distorted they become hard to read.

Length of the URL encoded: The QR code contains http://www.miniusa.com/virtualmini. This could have been shortened to make the QR code smaller and easier to read. Just shortening "virtualmini" to "vm" might have helped.

I expect that this ad was not tested as thoroughly as it could have been and that the designers let their artistic inclinations get ahead of practical considerations.These issues could be easily fixed. It is great to see major brands embracing QR technology. However, lets hope they learn to employ it a bit more care. If they do, customers will be happier and the brands will get better results.

QR Code vs. Microsoft Tag

QR code is far from optimal from a technical perspective. However, in creating a marketing platform for consumers what is important is the ability to provide mass reach and ubiquity not technical improvements. QR provides an open standard that is supported across almost all code readers. the QR specification is publicly available, one can readily find development tools to create or decode codes and develop applications. QR's openness allows a thriving innovative ecosystem to develop and is where I am focused.

On the other hand, Microsoft is trying to introduce a proprietary format that requires that consumers use their technology for code creation and code reading, and resolution. I agree that Tag does provide a pretty good user experience. But by adopting Microsoft tag, you become dependent upon Microsoft and wedded to their format. All codes, tracking information, and the application on your consumers' phones is controlled by Microsoft. Many companies including carriers, developers, marketing firms and major retailers are not comfortable with giving Microsoft that level of control the level of information and will be disinclined to support the format.

The real deal on Smart Phones outselling PCs

The news today is that smart phones outsold PCs over the past three months of 2010. Makers of mobile devices distributed a total of 101 million smartphones in the last three months of the year -- up 87% year-over-year, according to International Data Corp.

Certainly this is an exciting trend that indicates how the world is changing the way that they look for information and use phones. However, this also indicates an important trend that is lost in the overall statistics: there is a huge shift in how consumers are interacting with objects and information while out of home. The doors are opening up for all kinds of mobile consumer services for shopping and entertainment that would not have been viable even a short time ago.