If you leave home in the morning and forget your wallet, would you go back to pick it up? If you said “yes,” you are with 62% of the people who answered this question in an independent survey. When asked if, in the same situation, you forget your mobile phone, what would you answer? If you would go back and pick it up, you are among the 93% of the respondents who said “yes.”
Today, most people perceive that their mobile phone is more important than money, credit cards, or even ID. Agree? If you don't, you may not be well informed.
Maybe, you never heard that all (“all”) the credit card companies and banks are developing payment solutions using mobile phones, instead of plastic cards, checks or even money. Many different ways to make payments are being used. As examples: chips, texting, coupons, and, the fastest-growing way, 2D codes.
Actually, do you know which was one of the first segments that used 2D codes in a massive way? You have one chance to guess ... newspapers!
In Asia in the beginning of this century, 2D codes were used to help enhance the relationship between the reader and the newspaper. They transformed the newspapers into “newspapers with moving images.” Then, the first movers were the Scandinavians ... no news there. ;-)
Now, along with Asia, you can find all over Europe and Latin America hundreds of publications using the most powerful of them all: the BeeTaggs.
OK, what is a 2D code if you just landed on this planet? It's a bi-dimensional code, like a bar code, but one can scan it with a mobile phone in two different dimensions (horizontal and vertical). See the BeeTagg at the top of this blog. It looks like a honey comb. Got it?
OK, you may not know how to use it, so here it goes, step-by-step: with your smartphone, access www.phdmobi.com and download the reader for free. It takes 10 seconds and you will only need to download it once to be able to scan the three most important 2D codes, including the BeeTagg. Then, open the reader and click on scan. The camera will start working and you will approach the BeeTagg and scan or take a photo of it (depending on the device you have in hand). Perfect! Now you will be directed to exclusive content.
Many newspapers and magazines are changing the game with this simple tool because they are now approaching advertisers and agencies with a different advertising solution: they can offer moving images to interact with readers.
With this feature in the newspapers, print media is growing advertising revenues in many markets by getting a bigger share of the client's budget because now the reader can literally watch a TV commercial from a print ad.
It's called “advertagging,” and it's here to stay.
And guess what? Remember when the newspaper article had to go to press and the football game had not finished yet? Well, the next day the reader didn't know who won the match, right? Wrong! Now, with the BeeTagg, the reader can access updated information every time he or she scans the BeeTagg in the article. It can be updated as many times as needed.
OK, is it difficult to implement? No. How long does it take to be up and running? In one big company it can be integrated in a few days. In a small company, in a few hours. Is it expensive? Not at all.
This is just one of the new opportunities the mobile world is bringing to the media companies. And it comes with new revenues.
So, please, don't miss it!