QR Codes - A Boon or Bane for Indian Marketers?

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"QR codes are turning out to be perfect marketing package - a brief, compact, message driver and engagement tool - all loaded in one single code." ¹

-Kim Saldanha, Vice-President, Marketing, Customer Centria ² in 2011.

"As the Web becomes increasingly mobile, mobile bar codes act as links bridging the physical and digital worlds, opening new channels for content delivery and occasions for one-to-one dialogue with consumers." ³

-Chris Hill, vice president of advanced mobility solutions at AT&T⁴ , 2012.

Print advertising5 was the most widely used form of advertising till the 18th century. In the 19th century, companies used mass marketing and adopted broadcast6 advertising.7 Marketers were able to reach national and international customers and also provided maximum information about the product through advertising. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century saw other forms of advertising such as mobile advertising, email advertising, and outdoor advertising including billboards, kiosks, trade-shows, and events start to evolve in addition to print and broadcast advertising. Due to the vibrant impact of technology on the people, the usage of gadgets8 (mobiles) with high-end configurations became common.

Hence, companies started using such technology to promote their products by designing interactive mobile marketing models.

The advent of mobile phones with 2G (second generation) services in 1991 gave great scope for mobile advertising.⁹ Short message service (SMS)¹⁰ was the first technique used for communicating text messages in 1994 through mobiles. By 2000, many mobile advertising techniques had evolved and mobile marketing gained great significance.¹¹ Most often, 2D barcodes¹² like QR Codes, Data Matrix, PDF 417, and Maxi Code were preferred by marketers for advertising through mobiles.¹³

Introduction Contd... - Next Page >>

1] Gurtej Oshan, "QR Codes the New Buzz in Indian Markets," www.philipkotler2013.blogspot.in. November 7, 2011.
2] Customer Centria is a global customer engagement and experience company started in 2008.
3] Leonard Klie, "Who Benefits from QR Codes?," www.destinationcrm.com, March 2012.
4] AT&T Inc is a leading communications holding company headquartered in Texas, USA.
5] Advertising through newspapers, magazines, brochures, and fliers is called print advertising.
6] Advertising through television, radio and the Internet is called Broadcast advertising.
7] "History of Advertising," www.shirleyanderson.hubpages.com
8] Gadget is a small tool or device with multiple functioning capabilities.
9] "A Brief History Of Mobile Advertising," www.mobileadvertising.typepad.com, April 6, 2011.
10] SMS stands for short Message Service. It was developed in 1984. SMS was considered as a best mobile marketing tool.
11] "A Brief History of Mobile Advertising," www.mobileadvertising.typepad.com, April 6, 2011.
12] A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data relating to the object to which it is attached. Barcodes represent data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D). 2D barcodes are called two-dimensional because their information is encoded in two directions, both horizontally and vertically. Later they evolved into rectangles, dots, hexagons, and other geometric patterns in two dimensions (2D). Although 2D systems use a variety of symbols, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes originally were scanned by special optical scanners called barcode readers; later, scanners and interpretive software became available on devices including desktop printers and smartphones.
13] "What Are 2D Barcodes?," www.optional.is, May 9, 2009

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