The current shift by consumers to increased coupon clippings and emerging technology may be coming together.  A recent post on Ad Age delves into the developing technology of 2-D, or QR, bar codes.  Used in Japan and other markets for several years now, the idea is for users to snap a photo of the bar code with their mobile phone.  The phone , assuming it has the appropriate software installed, will the translate the image and send the user to the URL, email, etc that is linked to the code.  In Japan, large billboards feature the codes allowing users to snap a photo of them with their phones and receive coupons, web links and more.

The current obstacle in the US is the lack of code-reading software on phones.  Once phone, the Iphone by Apple, already has the ability due to free software that can be downloaded via the App Store.  I recently downloaded this type of software on my Iphone from 2D Sense.  Once installed, I went to www.2dsense.com and created my own 2-D code that you can see below:



If you have the software on your phone, you can take a picture of this code and it will take you to my website.  It works better if you print the code and snap a picture if the printout, but I was able to make it work by taking a picture of my laptop screen.

With several companies working on this technology, I would say we will be all be seeing a lot more of these in the near future.  The applications from a marketing perspective are quite endless.  Print this on the side of a box of cereal and when the customer "scans" it with their phone they get a coupon on the spot.  Put the image on a Facebook page and take the user to a website.  The already use tiny bar codes to track bees, why not track all of us ants?