PayPal has just released a hype video depicting what the future of shopping might look like with the introduction of PayPal’s next generation payment platforms, as they aim to re-imagine money.
It includes everything from person to person “bump” payments and transfers, location based offers that instantly transfer real dollars to your PayPal account for use in a certain store, barcode scanning with price referencing, QR code check-out, instant scan to pay from barcodes to skip the cash register line and a full post-checkout money management platform that let’s you choose how to pay, after you’ve actually paid for it.
We spotted this little gem from Cadbury, who launched a new AR game that is activated by their chocolate bar packaging. They are using Blippar’s image recognition technology and AR platform.
The game is simple and additive like any great game, and enables you to interact with your food like never before the scores are then shared on your social networks. Someone should really look at taking this idea into the restaurant arena for kids who are waiting for their food etc instead of the usual crayons and paper, McDonald’s please take note.
We spotted this video for QRadio from SWEZA and just had to put it on the blog. QR codes as you may know have been around for a while but we are always interested in their application and how you can get the audience to engage. The idea of an old style beat box we thought was fantastic and the tape imagery just brilliant.
In retail the opportunities to use the link between physical and online really needs to be explored more as we really need to engage with the customer more. We have had various discussions on how QR codes could help not only with brand and product awareness but also with the conversion rates for online and physical commerce. We are working with a number of innovative companies that are exploring the way this type of technology can really drive their businesses forward, for more info just visit www.c24.co.uk as always though please enjoy…………
By the way we thought it would be fun to drop in the video below about what Tesco is doing outside the UK. A great idea for time-saving and a really intuitive way of using technology……….
Diesel have introduced QR codes in their stores which enable you to “Like” a product by scanning a QR code which then posts to your Facebook wall. At the moment it is trialing in Diesel stores in Madrid, Spain but if successful may well be rolled out across Europe.
Agood idea maybe would be to link this with the Microsoft Kinect solution that we highlighted in a previous blog from a Topshop store in Moscow. So that you could like via a QR code and upload an image with you in the product. C24 loves this technology.
C24 has been interested in QR codes and their development for some time now so we are really interested in the solution highlighted below which we believe will help with the adoption of the technology. We at C24 are looking forward to where this is going to take the technology.
The “Scan and Send” system comes from Scanlife, as an additional service to the barcode-reading and QR-code decoding smartphone apps the company already supplies. Now all you have to do is grab a pic of a QR code (or regular 2-D barcode) with your dumb phone camera, and MMS it to a special number. Scanlife’s computers recognize and decode the image, then SMS the details back to you as a weblink… which you can automatically open in a browser if you’re using a feature phone, or email on to yourself for later perusal.
About a year ago Google launched Google goggles which it seems are a direct threat to QR codes. Today they have announced a marketing experiment. Google are working with five brands—Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines—to extend some of their offline marketing to the mobile web. They have “Goggles-enabled” some of their print ads, movie posters and other media. When users take pictures of these with Google Goggles, they will be recognized by the app, and users will have the option of clicking-through directly to a mobile destination from the brand.
Below is a video that promotes the solution:
You can interact with these experimental campaigns by downloading Google Goggles from the Android Market or get Google Mobile App for iPhone from the iTunes store, and look for advertising and products from companies in the video above and others that are coming soon.
I have just read a fantastic article on masable.com that is looking at the value of QR codes and there usage. They highlight a couple of examples which have really made us think. C24 are always looking to add true value to the solutions we offer our clients, not just looking to increase billing, but help our clients drive their business forward.
The ideas of printing QR codes on bills and offering a % reduction on the order is just the start, as a specialist application delivery and hosting company we could really start to look at the delivery of information in many ways. Some first ideas could be to:
print codes on desktops for compliance
setup personal databases so that people could store all their personal details linked from the code(obviously protected)
put the codes into hotel rooms that link directly to local activities and points of interest
If product is not available in one store, print a code to buy online or reserve at the nearest stocked store
Sending a code to event attendees requesting feedback and giving them further information about what they have seen
Once we got into this the opportunities to engage closely with clients/potential clients could be enormous. These examples illustrate the power of a new opportunity created by QR codes that we call context-sensitive marketing, or CSM, we can start to help clients drive business by connecting with their customers when they are most likely be interested in product.
The million dollar question is are customers ready?
Well the technology is now available, wi-fi is everywhere, smart phones are now the norm and cloud based information is gaining momentum. Putting all three together enables the adoption of QR codes and the readers. If we couple this with the latest news from Facebook etc this area seems on the verge of something really interesting and potentially massive.
Watch this space as we are really looking at this.
Posted by david ricketts 
