Price check !

web price comparison instore using your camera phone

Barcodes have been around since the late 1980’s. It’s use in retail and supermarkets is unquestionably successful, however consumer applications using the technology have been less widespread in there adoption.

In Asia it is reasonably common for outdoor advertising to carry barcodes which when scanned by camera phones, action some form of trigger - normally a download to the unit or a redirection to a website.

Marketing’s preference in the UK is to use short codes, we are all familiar with texting a short keyword to a 5 digit number to fulfill the same purpose.

However it seems an awful waste when you consider barcodes are present on every item for sale in the retail world, surly some form of marketing technology can make use of humble barcode?

ScanZoom

The idea is simple. After installation of specialty barcode reading software from ScanZoom your phone becomes a hybrid barcode reader, but with a twist.

Scanning items using your your camera phone the barcodes are then translated into the product or item information which is then sent to Price-Grabber and Amazon ( for books ) for price comparison.

marketing technology

Two key benefits

For the consumer : A neat way of ensuring you can barter for the best deals for those impulse purchases.

For the compaines : An important way to gain insight into our considerations and decisions

Old skool interactive

I am presently out in San Francisco where I saw this great piece of outdoor advertising for DHL. No technology, but a great example of interactive.

Video Search - The Eyes have it.....

tveyes - using voice recognition to enhance search

In a previous post I discussed the issues around searching the web for video content.

The issue - relying on meta tagging ( the information used to describe the content of the file ) to find exactly what you are looking for. This data can more often that not be unreliable, too short in it’s description of the entire clip and in most cases is a manual human task.

This problem is only going to increase – today over 60% of the traffic on the Internet is video based, weekly we see more content providers and portals coming online.

Joining Blinkx is TVeyes, a content search service that also uses voice recognition technology to index and therefore make searchable television and radio content from the US, UK Canada.
While not necessarily guaranteeing 100% results it does go a long way in providing a viable complimentary technology for video search and marketing opportunities.

Radio gets impersonal

radio adds companionship ?

I've covered on several occasions music serving providers such as Pandora and more recently Dizzler but with Last.fm's recent sale to CBS has put these services firmly in the spot light.

Apart from how to monetize these offerings is the fact that all content selection is driven by technology and users, not DJ's.

This personalized targeted approach is exactly what we all want right ? - maybe not.

The future

In the future we will have at our finger tips our own personalized music and TV channels.

These will be built from combinations of our existing habits from viewing, subscriptions and recordings and be delivered with some form of advertising ( still debate how this will work ) but one important element is missing, people.

Will our lives be then just one single stream of entertainment with absolutely no human element ?

Inject

You can Partner with social networking sites to increased the social element but you still need to have the timely injection of the DJ and TV presenter.

We have to remember that people listen and watch TV not just for the specific content, but also for companionship.

The end of the poster?

Terminal 5 , Heathrow's soon to be opened British Airways Terminal will have over 300 digital ' sites ' installed, representing over half the advertising real estate within the terminal.

It is anticipated over 27 million passengers will pass through the terminal per year - a good majority of these are classed as primary targets for advertisers.

Digital in this space allows felxibility and interaction - flexibility which will adapt information and messages as passengers pass through the different locations within the airport, interaction as BA hold some very useful information through their membership programs and partnerships that could be put to good use.

Madonna to play concert in Casper, Wyoming.....

pull content to your hometown

For most big acts it is quiet simple, book a massive venue such as Wembly Stadium or Madison Square Garden, promote the event through traditional media channels such as radio and you will have a sell out crowd.

What if you are on the periphery, have a reasonable sized but dislocated fan base. Or those who have a strong popularity based on some geographical factor, the question for these people is how to identify where you are in demand.

The answer - a website called ‘ Eventful ‘

Founded in 2004 it enables it’s members to ‘ request ‘ performers / acts to come and perform in their local districts. By influencing performers to come to their local districts it not only helps take the risk from choosing where to venue but is also a brilliant example of marketing technology allowing consumers to pull content , although in this case physical people.

marketing technology

Other features include

• Ability to link your ITunes and Last.fm to the site to be alerted when these performers are in town or on the road.
• Community forums around sharing and creating events with communication tools such as widgets and email.