We usually consider an ecosystem to be a community of organisms within their environment. In the world of mobile barcodes, there are many “organisms” involved and their ability to coexist is critical to sustaining a healthy environment.
The mobile barcode ecosystem is full of competing apps that scan codes, code types, and resolution companies – each are interesting and powerful technologies which all too frequently (and unfortunately) are completely incompatible with each other. This market fragmentation makes barcodes confusing for businesses and consumers, and is a real challenge to barcodes’ widespread success.
Let’s take quick look at the different players and their respective roles:
- Mobile Network Operators – For phones to get to content, a network is essential. Mobile Operators can also play a strong role in distributing barcode apps to consumers so that brands can advertise to a sufficiently large audience.
- Registry – A place where companies can turn to ensure that the codes they publish will work with different reader apps and Campaign Managers. It is a database that tracks relationships between specific barcodes and campaign managers.
- Neustar Clearinghouse Service – Ensures proper routing, and protects consumer interests like privacy and minimizing mobile fraud.
- Barcode Readers – Apps on handsets that consumers use to scan barcodes.
- Campaign Managers – Companies that create barcodes and barcode campaigns and provide value-added services to brands and advertisers who publish codes.
- Media Companies – Critical participants for consumer education and adoption. They have a big opportunity to drive adoption, promote use, and benefit from placing barcodes on television, in newspapers, magazines, and outdoor locations.
- Advertising Agencies – Coordinate the use of barcodes with media buys and development of creative user experiences on behalf of brands.
- Brands – Provide valuable content and an engaging user experience by adding barcodes to existing media.
We’ve been working with these ecosystem players over the past few years to understand the needs each has for a scalable, interoperable and customer-centric service. In fact, earlier this year at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, we launched a “Mobile Barcode Interoperability Pilot Program” to demonstrate the power of mobile barcode advertising.
Through this Pilot we have demonstrated the power of interoperability among global campaign management partners. This effort established an open solution allowing all players to join the ecosystem and to access the same infrastructure.
As the mobile barcode ecosystem matures, we will continue to play a strategic role in facilitating compatibility across barcode software and systems. Like a well-oiled engine, each of these players needs to work in harmony in order for those who put codes in the market to have confidence that their codes will work, and for the resulting customer interaction to reach its fullest potential.
Tags: barcode interoperability, clearinghouse and barcodes, GSMA and Neustar, mobile ecosystem, neustar and barcodes, Peter Langlois
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Of course, the elephant in the room is that… they don’t produce consumer response. The number one response mechanism is SMS. Every single barcode scanning service would produce better response if people simply texted in a keyword. Try searching to find actual results from a barcode marketing campaign outside the far east. There aren’t any – from an industry that’s been hyping this stuff since at least 2003.
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Eddy:
The number one direct response medium for brands in mobile is Common Short Code based text messaging (SMS) – I totally agree. In fact my last response to the blog, reiterated just that. Brands should always include a texting component to their mobile campaigns as it has the widest reach and takes advantage of the number one activity used on the phone – texting. But, brands should not stop there. Consumers are seeking richer, interactive experiences and if that makes sense for the brand, brands will continue to try “the next big thing.”
After texting, the number two thing we do with the phone is talk and the number 3 thing is take pictures. The reason bar codes are beginning to produce consumer response is because consumers don’t have a huge leap to become educated on how to snap or scan a bar code plus, many bar code scanners are working with 1D codes of which there are billions already in the marketplace.
Now that smart phones are reaching 35-50% adoption in many developed nations, now that broadband has reached high speeds and consumers are downloading applications by the dozens, the many bar code scanner apps and bar code campaigns running clearly demonstrates, the industry is in a much different place than it was in 2003.
To be honest, industry hype always supersedes adoption. That said, I think we are past industry hype. Very significant brands, publishers, mobile operators, ad agencies and technology providers are investing in and trialing this new medium.
The question is whether all these individual trials and point solutions will be able to easily interoperate and be compatible so that advertisers can achieve what they want – reach, targeting and closed loop ROI and consumers get what they want – simple access to great content and compelling experiences.
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Peter Langlois
Jeff Neuman
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