QR Codes on Pro Women’s Beach Volleyball Bikini Bottoms
OK, I apologize for the pun. But c’mon. This story is made for it – I think Betfair has gotten more in “earned media” than they could have ever hoped for…
Zara Dampney, 24, and Shauna Mullin, 26, have turned the most-photographed bits of their (ahem) work uniforms into high-tech billboards. The stuffy International Olympic Committee has already ruled that they will not be allowed to wear these logos in the 2012 London Games.
According to Andy Lulham, the Betfair head of Sports and Marketing PR:
“There is huge interest in beach volleyball and we want to ensure
that our advertising campaign is seen and remembered by as many sports
fans as possible.As far as we’re aware this is the first time QR codes have been used
in in-play sports advertising and what better way to test its
effectiveness than by putting them on one of the places that is likely
to get photographed the most.”
Talk about knowing your audience. This opens up all sorts of marketing opportunities – especially here in LA, where so many starlets walk the red carpets, getting their photographs splashed all over the web. Pam
I'm not sure how practical it is to try to get the clunky QR readers on a smartphone to react to an athlete moving at full speed; but that's not really the point here, is it?
Anderson’s cleavage is probably already the subject of a bidding war between GoDaddy and the Final Destination movie franchise. I wonder how soon it will be before the once-ubiquitous bar codes that hipster wannabe tough guys were getting tattooed on the backs of their necks (to be like the “Hitman” videogame anti-hero, I guess) will be replaced by QR codes.
Right now, the place where most consumers are encountering QR codes is in magazine or newspaper ads, and they are mostly using them from their homes. Which makes sense, because the QR readers installed, even on a “superphone” like the iPhone 3Gs, still takes a couple of seconds (and a very steady hand) to register & activate. Even with a big image on a high-resolution computer monitor, I’ve had to move the phone up and down, back and forth, in and out … until finally it buzzed and launches the Safari browser.
Still, with the next generation of smartphones pretty much all sporting dual-core processors and higher-resolution cameras, I think that actually getting your handset to work with a QR code is going to be a much easier experience. Right now, it’s almost quicker for me to launch Safari and type in a Google query than it is to try to use the QR code.
Statistics & Damn Lies:
According to the most recent Pew Research Report, 87% of people who have a smartphone use it to surf the net, 67% of them do it every day, and 25% use their smartphones exclusively to access web content. As you might expect, this over-indexes on young, nonwhite users – people less likely to actually have a dedicated broadband connection, and who are much more likely to be out on the town at night, using their phones to connect to their friends & settle bar bets.
When it comes to using QR codes, again the stats tilt young, male and urban. As of June, 14 million people had actually used their phones to use a QR code (about 6.2% of the total mobile users in the U.S.), and 36% of them make more than $100,000 a year.
While only 40% of the QR code users have employed them in a grocery store, I think that the TV ads (and the monkey-see, monkey-do effect of watching more connected shoppers cashing in coupons while in the aisles of Ralph’s or Wal-Mart) will lead to some heavy growth in their area in the next year. Already, Conan O’Brian and Jimmy Fallon made splashy use of QR codes on their programs.
One stat that does jump out at me: the 27% of people who are using QR codes while already connected and using a PC (see chart below). I know why I do that – I’m a geek, and I’m testing to see if they really do work. But what’s the excuse for the other 4 million or so that have done it? I guess maybe it’s to download music, access a trailer that’s mobile-only, or maybe to launch a game? If nothing else, it tells me that there is a strong and growing audience there – and that there is a willingness to reach for the mobile device to extend the experience beyond what you can get, even on a PC with a much bigger screen, faster processor and more capabilities than any mobile deck (at least those now in existence) can match…
|
Source of Scanned QR Code (Total Mobile Audience U.S. Age 13+) |
||
|
|
QR Code Audience (000) |
% of QR Code Audience (Mult. Sources) |
|
Total Audience: Scanned QR code with mobile phone |
14,452 |
100.0% |
|
Printed magazine or newspaper |
7,138 |
49.4% |
|
Product packaging |
5,101 |
35.3% |
|
Website on PC |
3,957 |
27.4% |
|
Poster or flyer or kiosk |
3,393 |
23.5% |
|
Business card or brochure |
1,940 |
13.4% |
|
Storefront |
1,850 |
12.8% |
|
TV |
1,693 |
11.7% |
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Brilliant idea and great PR.
That’s what it’s all about because QR codes are getting more and more relevant, and use of them on a much-talked about area of female sport is the ultimate endorsement.