Mobile Action Codes Come of Age. Do Consumers Care?

The global market for mobile marketing and advertising is booming, with QR codes and augmented reality experiences bringing brand messaging interactive and (dare we say) fun. But what best practices are emerging — and how are they clicking with consumers?

As SpyderLynk CMO Jane McPherson has noted, the challenge is getting consumers to use them, and benefit from the experience: "If everyone throws QR codes on everything without offering consumers value beyond a web connection, will it turn consumers off? Right now there’s still a novelty factor, but marketers are going to have think more carefully about the best times, places, and ways to use mobile activation codes.” 

A new study by mobile marketing and tech research firm Nellymoser aims to answer that question by looking at "mobile action codes" in the top 100 national magazines in the U.S. last year — or more formally, “Mobile Action Codes In Magazine Advertising 2011 Including QR Codes, Microsoft Tags and Digital Watermarks.”

The report notes the rapid growth of mobile action codes vying for magazine readers' attention. “A record 4468 mobile action codes, which we broadly define to include all 2D barcodes, QR codes, Microsoft Tags, and watermarks, were printed in the top 100 U.S. magazines in 2011," the report notes. "These codes offer publishers and advertisers a compelling way to launch print-to-mobile and print-to-social campaigns that engage readers, build brand loyalty and capture new business."

Nellymoser's Roger Matus, EVP, Ann Carver, Analyst and Maria Tricca, Marketing Manager, analyzed 164,255 ad pages printed in 2011, were categorized with a code and scanned for each campaign. Notably, from January to December, the number of codes grew by 617% by Dec. 31st, when more than 8% of magazine ad pages contained a QR or other action code.

The study scanned every QR Code, Microsoft Tag, SpyderLynk SnapTag, BEE Tag, JagTag, Digimarc watermark and other codes with an iPhone or Android device, activated every campaign, ran every video and visited every web page.

Almost all of the action codes printed in the Top 100 magazines during Q4 were either QR Codes or Microsoft Tags (97%), and more than one third of all codes (1619) come from three industries: beauty, home and fashion, with the top two brands being John Frieda and L'Oreal.

Four types of campaigns dominate the use of action codes: Video demonstrations and branding (e.g., a look behind the scenes); Data capture and list building, with sweepstakes being an important use; Links to e-commerce sites and store locators for brick-and-mortar locations; Social media sharing with links to Facebook and Twitter. Other key findings include:

• Microsoft Tags remain widely used by editors and integrated marketers at magazines. 

• Almost all action code experiences have been mobile-optimized. 

• The brands that most commonly use codes are in the fashion, beauty and home industries. In Q4, electronics vendors are retailers entered the Top 10 list for the first time. 

• Two-thirds of action codes follow the best practice of describing what happens after the code is scanned.

Download the full Nellymoser report for more insights.