Wireless: Mobile marketing in = an ink blot - Print Version

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Wireless: Mobile = marketing in an=20 ink blot

By Eric Sylvers
International Herald = Tribune=20

The twentysomething with the ponytail races down the steps to the = platform to=20 find that she has just missed her subway and will have to wait seven = minutes for=20 the next one.

She is unperturbed about the unexpected delay. She pulls out her = cellphone,=20 snaps a picture of a corner of the movie poster on the other side of the = tracks=20 and, a few seconds later, she has a list of show times at neighborhood = theaters=20 on her handset as well as a review of the film. With one more click, she = can=20 watch the trailer and buy tickets.

In Japan, this scene is so common as to border on the banal, and the=20 technology that makes it possible, QR codes, is so widespread that it is = employed in dozens of retail industries. In Europe and North America, a = handful=20 of imitators are looking to the QR model to try to give "point and = click" a=20 whole new meaning outside Asia.

QR, or quick response, codes are a similar to bar codes except they = are=20 square, look a bit like an ink blot and contain much more information. = In Japan=20 and South Korea, QR codes are used to link directly to a Web site, as in = the=20 case of the subway poster, saving the user the need to type an address = on the=20 tiny keypad of the phone. As marketers seek an edge on competitors, QR = codes are=20 appearing practically everywhere in Japan.

"Somebody can go to the meat section of some supermarkets in Japan = and use a=20 QR code to find out what the cow ate, where it came from and where it = was=20 processed," said Junn Chanoki, the Tokyo-based head of food and = agribusiness=20 research for Rabobank, a Dutch investment bank. "Ninety percent of = Japanese have=20 a mobile phone, and most phones are connected to the Internet, so the = number of=20 potential users is enormous."

QR codes are now popping up on Japanese business cards, allowing = somebody to=20 snap a picture with a cellphone and save the bother of entering a new = contact's=20 information. Last month, McDonald's began putting the codes directly on = food=20 packaging so that Japanese diners could get nutrition information = instantly.

Denso Wave, a Japanese electronics company, created QR codes in 1994 = to track=20 car parts, employing hand-held devices that are still in use. Although = it=20 patented the process, the company allowed anybody to create QR codes = without=20 having to pay a licensing fee. That helped the technology take off.

But that by itself would not have been enough to guarantee the code's = ubiquity, said Daniel Scuka, the editor of Wireless Watch Japan, an = online=20 publication.

"QR codes have been a great success in Japan because phone carriers=20 confronted this in a systemic way, with all of them using the same = technology,"=20 he said - a potential lesson for carriers in Europe and the United = States.

When QR codes first came into use about five years ago, software had = to be=20 downloaded onto phones that allowed the handset to decipher the code = once it had=20 been photographed. Now, most phones sold in Japan have the software = built in, or=20 it can be downloaded directly to the handset.

"The power of QR is that it is easy to use and potentially turns = anything=20 into a direct connection between advertiser and client," said Kent = Wertime, the=20 Bangkok-based president for the Asian operations of OgilvyOne, a digital = and=20 direct marketing agency.

While QR codes have had success in Japan and South Korea, they have = not made=20 the leap to the rest of Asia, Europe and North America. MobileTag, = developed by=20 the French company Abaxia, and ShotCode, created by a Swedish-Dutch = start-up=20 called OP3, are similar to QR codes and could be the early favorites to = grab=20 market share outside Asia, should the technology catch on.

But by the time the rest of the world begins using something like QR, = Japan=20 may well have moved on to the next thing. Fujitsu said last month that = it had=20 developed a new type of data- storing code that worked like QR codes but = blended=20 into pictures, making it imperceptible.