QR Codes have arrived!

Our QRazystuff.com clothing sales have started to rocket, as tech savvy youth get to grips with QR Codes and Social Media.  Wearing your Facebook profile and expanding your Friend network whilst out and about has to be the coolest ‘must have’ fashion accessory out there at the moment.

Our mission from day one has been to create consumer awareness of QR Codes through their use in mainstream advertising, in the hope that as consumers understand QR tech, they will join the QR revolution and wear their Codes with pride.  This has started to become a reality in the UK over the past couple of months, as brands rush to bring their offline advertising to life with QR Codes.

Outside of Japan, the UK seems to be leading the way in terms of QR Code use in advertising.  We’re sure we’ll be corrected for that statement, but we are, without doubt, witnessing an explosion in use of these amazing bar codes in the UK.

A typical London newspaper now has an abundance of ads with QR Codes on them each day.  Yes, there are problems with some of these ads in terms of content and code image reproduction, but seeing so many in the wild has brought a feeling of pride to our team members.  We have been advocating the use of QR Codes to mainstream advertisers and their agencies for over a year now, all of which have been bold over by their potential.

It’s a channel that will continue to grow and mature as time goes by – certainly until we uncover the next technology that has such widespread appeal to out of home advertisers.

This week has been a particularly great one for QR Codes in the UK, with London’s two main free newspapers quite literally packed with ads displaying QR Codes – check out the slideshow below to catch a glimpse of just some of them.

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We’d love to hear from you if you have any comments about these ads.  Get interactive with them and drop us your comments in this post.  We’re sure the advertisers themselves would appreciate some real consumer feedback, so don’t hold back – post your comment… good or bad!

QR Codes Bridging the Gap between Off and Online Media for the ‘Mobile’ Consumer

At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas recently, WPP chief executive, Martin Sorrell, told a packed audience that mobile advertising has become the most important trend in the industry, thanks to the exponential growth of internet-enabled mobile phones which are key to the industry’s future.

This statement, from one of today’s greatest advertising minds, reinforces the need for those in the offline advertising markets to consider their future business models and evaluate how best to engage with the change in the populations use of mobile technology.

Those in the offline advertising arena are being challenged to come up with creative means for adding another dimension to the once one dimensional media of print.  Whilst printed media will always have a role to play in advertising, consumers are demanding content that engages with their online lifestyles.  There are 5,000,000,000 Mobile handsets in the world today^[i] of which 39% are internet enabled^[ii]..  This figure is predicted to grow at a phenomenal rate over the next few years, as churn of standard mobile phones is replaced by today’s modern smartphone.

The tech-savvy Japanese market are way ahead of the curve with this challenge and have been using 2 dimensional barcodes on printed media for a number of years.  You will see 2d Barcodes all over Japan, anywhere from food packaging, newspapers, T-Shirts to 48 sheet billboards.  They have even appeared on building facades.  These barcodes are read/scanned using any internet enabled mobile phone with an on-board camera and once scanned; launch the handsets web browser to deliver media rich online content.  Here lies another dimension for print media…

As the US and European markets catch up with mobile handset technology with advent of smartphones such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones, which are now replacing the standard handset in these areas, we too can now bring printed media to life and deliver the immense mass of online content to the mobile consumer.

Imagine, being able to link online content to a piece of POS, or a Press Ad..  What about personalised Direct Mail?  All of these examples are now possible by simply adding a 2d barcode to your print media and delivering media rich, up to the minute content instantaneously to the consumers’ channel of choice – Mobile.

The most popular form of 2d barcode being used in this emerging market is the Quick Response Code, or QR Code as it is better known.  Originally developed for tracking car parts around the Toyota manufacturing operations in Japan in 1994, the QR code is now being used by global advertising brands to deliver mobile content from offline media.  Whilst the technology is not new, the delivery points are and are destined to become common place in today’s mobile market.

QR Codes can be encoded to contain vCards, VEvents, SMS Messages, Geo Location data, Email messages, Text based content and of course URLs.  As the technology has grown from within the underworld Open Source community, we are now starting to see new and innovative ways in which these amazing barcodes are starting to be used.  In recent months, we have witnessed QR Codes being used for interactions like; Instant Charitable donation giving, Social Media Check-in’s and connection exchanges.  Most recently, pURLs have been embedded within QR Codes for the ultra-personalised mobile experience. We have even seen them appearing on clothing and toilet rolls…

We are not from the stable that believes printed media is on the way out – in fact far from it.  But, Print Media does need that 2^nd dimension to really engage with today’s tech-savvy consumer and QR Codes may well be the means to achieve this.

Another major feature of QR Code marketing is the ability to track and analyse consumer engagement with your print media advertising.  Free online services like QRtag provide you with the ability to not only generate your own QR Codes, but also track scan interactions, along with providing you with an amazing array of scan analytics on location, handset and media usage.  Totally aligned to today’s world of measureable advertising, QR Codes will stand up and be counted as part of advertising’s ROI measurement!

To join the QR Code revolution, simply download a QR Code reader app to your Mobile – Text the word i-nigma to: 07797882325. You will receive back an SMS containing a link to the i-nigma software download site – the rest is simple.  I-Nigma is just one of literally hundreds of free mobile bar code scanning apps available across, iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry and Symbian app marketplaces.  If you don’t have a smartphone, don’t worry, i-nigma will work on any mobile phone that has a camera and web browser installed.

Here are a few examples for you to play with..  Simply scan the QRazyCodes below and see where the QR journey takes you:

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There is a wealth of additional content available online about QR Codes – why not start with checking out the links below.  The authors of this article regularly publish information rich content via Social Media platforms – a great place to gain knowledge from today’s online world:

Free Online Generator and Analytics Platform

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Clothing Web Site

Author:  Martin Rides, CEO, QRazystuff.com & QRt.ag

QR Code Consultants

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[i] Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use

[ii] Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Internet_growth

Labrinth Goes Wild with Urban QR Code Campaign

Following our “Building a Music Brand with QR Codes” post, we have continued to track the incredible success of the UK’s latest music sensation, Labrinth.  If you haven’t heard of Labrinth yet, you certainly will do.  He has raced into the UK charts with his single release ‘Let the Sun Shine’ , currently occupying No. 2 spot in the UK  iTunes download chart.  He’s destined to top the charts within the next week, as the single, which was officially released at the weekend gets more play time on the UK’s radio stations.

Labrinth originally came to our attention, having come across the pre-launch social media campaign, devised by London based Digital Marketing agency, Punktilio.  The campaign stood out, as it centred around the use of QR Codes in the creation of the Labrinth brand and the use of QR Codes across the social media platforms like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube & Twitter.  As an aside, we reported that at the beginning of September, Labrinth had attracted 316,413 channel views on his YouTube site – this figure has now rocketed to a staggering 1,293,800, proving the awesome power of Social Media in today’s modern world of marketing a musician’s brand.

The advertising campaign for Labrinth’s single hit the streets of London at the weekend, with a massive urban ad campaign using QR Codes once again.  All across London, we saw Labrinth posters featuring QR Codes, which resolved to a specific page that offered free downloads from the Labrinth web site..  They appeared in every conceivable place from pedestrian crossings to shop windows.

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This form of urban advertising is a radical move for the UK music industry, but one that fits perfectly with the Labrinth brand and also with his already massive fan base.  It’s widely recognised that there is a natural fit with the youth market and their use of Mobile technology, which adds significant weight to the Love Affair between Music and QR Codes.

It was also great to see Labrinth using QR Codes as a response mechanism on his official poster advertising as well.  If you look closely enough, you’ll see a QR Code (with instructions) on the bottom left hand corner of this poster (Click image to enlarge).

QRazystuff.com is really excited about this brave foray into the use of Mobile Bar Codes by the music industry.  There are significant opportunities for the world’s music industry to embrace the youth market through their communications channel of choice ‘Mobile’ .  QR Codes, and perhaps more importantly update-able QR Tags can deliver new and exciting means of brands engaging with their fans via the Mobile channel.

Labrinth is not only known as a leading Music producer and solo artist, but has also made the headlines recently, as one of the coolest fashion icons in the music industry.  He recently appeared at London Fashion Week and has been quoted as “implementing uniqueness into his day to day wear”.  The ‘uniqueness’ comment is also reflected in his management’s approach to advertising as well.

If Labrinth’s management team wished to extend the use of QR Codes and fashion, we’ll be waiting by the phone for that merchandising deal!  We’ve been quoted before in our Blog promoting the idea of musicians using QR Tagged clothing or other merchandise to not only promote a unique style of merchandising, but also providing a means of promoting targeted messaging to a loyal fan base. Wait…. is that the phone ringing?

Meantime, “Let the Sun Shine”…

P.S  When Labrinth’s management team want to get in touch, full contact details are on our web site

QRazyGames with our QR Tags

We could really do with some creative input from anyone reading this post…  One of the fun ways in which QR Codes have been used in the wild is as part of Scavenger/Treasure hunts, but there’s so much more we can do with a QRazystuff Tag.

As you can change the content of a QRazystuff Tag, you can create all manner of different and fun games or social interactions.

The QR Tag below can be updated from the QRazyClub members area of the QRazystuff.com web site, with whatever URL or message you want.  Not only that, but as you make the change on the web site, the code updates instantaneously.

As an experiment, we’ll be changing the content of this Tag daily for the next few days.  The same Tag is posted on our Facebook & MySpace pages, as well as being distributed around Twitter, so we’re hoping for quite a bit of social interaction and hopefully some QRazyGame ideas we can develop for our QRazyClub members.

If this experiment is successful, we’ll post some of the ideas on the Blog.

Feel free to post your ideas within the comments on this blog post, put them on the QRazystuff Facebook page or drop us a Tweet!

QRazystuff.com Feature Release

A major feature of the QRazystuff.com site and products is our customers unique ability to change the destination/content of their QR Tags.  Hot on the heels of the site launch last month, we’re delighted to announce the launch of the ‘Update your Tag’ feature as of today (16/9/2010).

Our QR Tags are for life!  So there’s no need to change the design or purchase a new T-Shirt or Hoodie, when you want to change the content of the QR Code on your garments, just simply visit the members section of the QRazystuff.com web site, login and then ‘Update your Tag’.

The next time your Tag is scanned, the content will have changed to whatever you want.  Update your Tag to reflect your mood, or promote your Social Media presence, or why not add your telephone number when out with the crowd.  The opportunities are endless and so much fun.

QRazystuff.com Press Release

Online Fashion Store Launches with Wearable Social Media

Imagine pulling out your Mobile and using it as a scanner to download videos, pictures, the latest news story or even someone’s social media status. Well, welcome to a truly digital world, because we’re already there.

Combining this vision with fashion has lead to the launch of the UK’s first QR Code online clothing retailer – QRazystuff.com.  This high tech fashion is about to hit the streets of the UK in the form of personalised t-shirts and hoodies that interact with your mobile phone.

QRazystuff.com today launched its online shop, selling their very latest fashion range, which contain personalised QR Tags (2d barcodes), which when scanned by a mobile phone will launch the owners choice of online media on the viewers mobile phone.

The technology behind the range works with a host of mobile phone bar code apps, with each QRazystuff T-Shirt or Hoodie being unique to its owner.  A simple scan of the QR Tag will launch the phone’s web browser, directing the viewer to a web site, social media site or text based message of the owner’s choice.  What’s more, the owner can change the destination of their tag whenever they want via the QRazystuff.com web site.

The QRazystuff.com web site allows customers to add a strap-line to the clothing as well.  At the time of launch, QRazystuff will be offering some neat strapline designs as well as allowing the customer to write a witty strapline text of their own.

The possibilities for using these wearable tags are endless and pretty much down to the imagination of the owner.  As the content of the Tag can be changed, your clothing can even reflect your mood.  Members simply access the QRazystuff web site and update the content of their tag online, so one day the Tag might direct to your Facebook profile and the next to a YouTube video or picture you want to share with the world.

QRazystuff.com is the brainchild of UK based entrepreneurs, Martin Rides & Grant Bloomfield, who told us “having seen the explosion of these bar-codes in Japan over recent years and also seeing increased use of them in the US, we saw an opportunity to popularise them in fashion.  They are different and you certainly get noticed when out and about.  It’s also a fun way of displaying your personality or your online presence with the world.  We’re developing the web site, so that members of the QRazyClub can update their tag content whenever they like and also keep a track of how many times their tag has been scanned.  Our plans for the club, whilst under wraps at the moment include; QRazyClub mash ups and some cool real-life gaming ideas.”

There’s something quite appealing about this youth fashion..  The concept of owning your own Tag and having control over its content has the potential to explode in today’s tech savvy youth market.  The company has some grand plans for the coming months, with some high profile activity in the music industry as well as venturing into high street retail market. It is certainly one to watch!

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About QRazystuff Limited

QRazystuff is UK based start up internet clothing retailer working in the mobile phone technology sector. QRazystuff produces a range of personalised clothing, which interact with mobile bar code reader applications on mobile platforms such as; iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile amongst others.  QRazystuff products use 2d bar codes known as Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) at the heart of the technology.  These bar codes were developed by Denso Wave in the mid 1990’s for car part tracking within the Toyota car manufacturing operations.  They have since been used in wide scale advertising by the likes of Google, Pepsi UK and Nike.  QRazystuff.com has been designed using Cloud based computing technologies at its core and offers a variety of unique services to its members, including the ability to change the content & ultimate web destination of the owners Tag and also monitor scan metrics via an online membership dashboard.

Reader Download

To get a QR Code reader send a SMS (text message) containing i-nigma to: +44 7797 882325 and you will be sent the link to the software.  Or Visit http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/

QRazystuff.com Launches Today!

Yes, it’s finally arrived!  9 months of research, tests, web site development,  integration of affiliate’s systems and a whole host more testing and we now have the world’s first (probably) QR Tag merchandise shop.

QRazystuff.com will be officially launched at the Music4Life festival in our home town in Sudbury, Suffolk on Saturday 7th August 2010.  It’s going to be an amazing day, that can only likened to the birth of your first child….

A passionate meeting between the two QRazystuff partners, resulted in 9 months of up’s and down’s and 2 days of a difficult labour (we’ll explain more another day)..  Our new born, strangely named “QRazystuff.com“, has a bright future with a team of loving supporters and a fan club and following running into many thousands.  Just incredible how Social Media has helped develop what was a crazy idea all those months ago.

We’ve taken a short video from the web site, so you can see what our new born has in store for you:

We’ll be opening the doors to the QRazyClub with FREE membership for the first 5,000 VIP members, so don’t waste any time and sign up today to help support QRazystuff.com.  Members of the club will join the QRazystuff family and as always get priority access to the club as it grows over time – no only in numbers but with some new and exciting new features.

Our recent London QR Mash up was something we’d like to repeat around the globe, but perhaps with some fun interactive gaming thrown in.  If you’re interested in helping spread the QRazystuff brand and want some support from the team, drop us a Tweet @QRazystuff or leave a message on the Facebook Fan Page

Launch date looming…

Well, after what seems like an eternity, we can finally see light at the end of the tunnel…  The past few months have been extremely busy ones, working tirelessly with creating the QRazystuff brand and selling QR Codes to the masses.  Earlier in the week, we had a status meeting with the web designers and finalised a launch date for QRazystuff.com.

Now the fun really begins, between now and the end of July 2010 (launch date), we will be increasing our promotional activity in the advertising world as well as sorting out the finishing touches to the end to end order process.  At this point, I think it is fair to say, that we did not fully understand how complex it is to… create a personalised QR Tag, add some personalised detail to a garment, create the artwork, manage the print, fulfilment & postage processes, which are just some of the component parts of producing, what will be an amazing piece of fashion!  By the way, if anyone is considering doing something similar in the future, we will be writing a book about the journey.

To more exciting things and in particular what we have lined up over the next month or so..  Next week we will be at Ogilvy (London) for their Mobile Lab Day #MobLab, where we will continue our partnership with the world’s largest advertising group in promoting these amazing bar codes to the world of advertising.  Ogilvy really are pioneers in advertising and their Lab’s which are scattered around the globe are truly innovative.  A focus point for staff and customers to engage first hand with new and exciting developments in technology, which all relate to advertising.  Our presence adds not only a serious message about the use of 2d barcodes in mobile marketing, but also provides a light hearted addition to the exhibition.  People just love, grabbing their mobile phone and scanning our Tags..  Many may not even be aware of a QR Code, so when they start to engage with the ideas, you can see their imagination going into overdrive..

Another market we are working on developing is in the world of Music. It’s all pretty logical really, Music over the years has had a massive impact on people’s lives, from what they wear to who they are.  We’ve been talking to a number of big players in this market over recent months and these highly imaginative people ‘get’ the role that QR Tags can play in the music world…  Whilst we have a way to go before we can really sell in a strong proposition for the QRazystuff clothing brand, we are confident that we’ll have a unique proposition that Record Companies, Producers, Promoter’s & Artists alike will love (more to follow another day).

Our first foray into this market is quite literally the week after we launch..  We’re fortunate enough to have a local Music Festival taking place right on our door-step on 7th August.  MusicforLife 2010 is the precursor to what will be a major UK Festival in 2011.  This Charity event is being sponsored by QRazystuff Ltd, with all proceeds going to the Eden Rose Coppice charity.  The charity supports those affected by Cancer, by providing cancer patients, their families, volunteers, caregivers and nurses an opportunity to escape, reflect and connect with nature.  This year’s festival will certainly be a very exciting one for the QRazystuff team, as we’ll be manning our first festival tent, not only displaying our clothing, but also providing access to customers to purchase their own Tagged clothing!

We’ve also produced some promotional T-Shirts for this year’s event, with any resale proceeds being passed onto the Charity of course.

For next year’s festival market, we have some ground breaking plans for how we can retail our products..  again more to follow another day.

There’s a lot more to tell about the future plans of QRazystuff, but I’m afraid they will have to stay under-wraps for now. ..

The QRazystuff Range

We’ve been busy doing our market research and producing a variety of product designs for the QRazystuff personalised clothing range.  We’re using some cutting edge print technology to produce our T-Shirts and Hoodies, which allows us to produce large quantities of personalised clothing on demand.  The quality of the test prints we have achieved with our print partners has been outstandingly good.  We have produced clean, crisp images and beautifully vibrant colours for the various strap-lines we are printing.

Bear in mind, no one print is the same as another – they are all individual prints, personalised to the individual.

The clothing range will not only be aligned to the Social Media Network of your choice (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube etc), but can also feature codes that contain a simple text based message or automated telephone call!  Now that’s going to get you thinking…

Here are just some of the designs we will be launching with.

If you’d like to get involved in spreading the QRazystuff message, we have some limited edition prints to give away.  Join us on Facebook to get involved.