Harrods To Use “Cult’ Barcodes; US Barcodes Revisited
By Dianne See Morrison - Thu 17 Apr 2008 02:57 AM PST
Mobile barcodes are getting another push in the UK. Posh department store Harrods is running a campaign—thought to be the first from a major British retailer--according to a swooning article in the Times, that notes the use of the codes come 110 years after the store introduced the “world’s first moving staircase.”
Harrods barcodes will appear in print ads in London and national media to call attention to “Design Icons,” a new exhibition in the store, featuring fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, among others. What’s especially interesting here is how Harrods is using the barcodes--they’re not so much focused on driving large amounts of traffic, but on targeting a specific audience. The store is using them to help update its gilded image of marbled floors and ladies who lunch. Harrods marketing head Martin Buckley said the store wanted to target a “new customer base - thought leaders, as well as students - and this is a way of communicating with them through a different medium that feels new.” Mark Tomblin, director of strategy at digital agency TBG, which helped Harrods create the campaign added, “This is an attempt to connect with a more tech-savvy audience, and frankly we’re quite pleased if the whole campaign remains a bit ‘cult’. Harrods is also creating a MySpace profile, and plan to use Twitter to send out event alerts around the exhibition.
Across the pond, AdAge has a more down to earth feature on QR codes, looking again at the recent Case Western University trial covered recently in the NYT, as well as a short history of their usage in the US. (QR codes first debuted in the US in 2000, but instead of using mobile phones, the codes had to be scanned in with a specific device dubbed the CutCat—and yes, it was shaped like a cat. The cumbersome effort was doomed from the start—despite the efforts of mainstream media outlets like Forbes and Wired giving the CueCats away for free.)
But while QR companies believe that mobile phones solve the problem of the scanning device, it’s clear that there’s still a way to go before this becomes mainstream. Camera phone owners are still the minority, rather than majority, and an even smaller percentage of phones—5 percent--have the scanning technology pre-loaded, which means consumers have to be motivated enough to download a reader. Moreover, cost for the user is still an issue. The code costs are dependent on whether the user has an unlimited data plan—which is less than 30 percent of the US mobile population. Without a fixed price, users are petrified of running up their phone bill.
Still, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) reports some impressive results for QR codes, which did a recent campaign with jewelry retailer Blue Nile, with one set of ads containing QR codes, and another without them. The ads with the codes drove 6.5 times more revenue than those without them.
Posted in:
Tags: harrods,
