QR CODE – Content-rich Resume from Victor petit on Vimeo.

Prepare to feel really inadequate about your chosen resume font. This dude has fashioned a custom QR code resume that is sure to break up the monotony of any HR person’s day.

Made by Victor Petit — who was looking for an internship but recently scored one — this resume is reminiscent of band Cassius’s video and accompanying app [iTunes link] for “I Love You So.” It features a QR code in the middle of a picture of a face (on the back of a printed resume) that unlocks a video of the missing mouth on your phone.

“I realized during my previous job search that getting an interview at a communication agency is the hardest part of the process,” says Petit. “I tried to create a CV that would enable me to express myself vocally as soon as they read the paper version. The combination of a sheet of paper and a QR code felt like the best way to reach that goal.”

We’re not sure what exactly Petit’s skills are from the video alone — it has no sound — aside from being extremely awesome.

Koreans are the second most hardest working people in the world. For them going grocery shopping once a week is seen as a dreaded task.

Tesco (now known in South Korea as Home plus) decided to make shopping easier for Koreans by setting up virtual stores in locations such as subway stations walls using large printed backlit displays. People could then purchase items seen on the wall by scanning QR Codes with their mobile phones, adding each item to their shopping carts. Couriers would then deliver the goods to their homes.

Not only did Tesco investigate their market and provide a solution to a problem, they also increased their online sales by 130%.

With Americans spending nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs (a 43% increase from just a year ago, according to a recent study by Nielsen), there is no reason marketers should not be taking advantage of these new communication platforms. People see, hear, and touch more marketing messages than ever before. To stay top of mind with your audience, it is important to be where they are at all times and embrace these new avenues of communication.

Many companies have created Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles as another way to connect with customers and prospects. Social media provide customers one more way to interact with you and provide prospects a non-invasive way to learn more about your company.

That’s just a first step, however. From there you need to incorporate them into your email and direct mail marketing campaigns so that you can better grow your network and increase brand exposure.

In email communications, you can add “follow us” and “connect with us” icons that are easily clicked on or a one-liner that says, for example, “follow us at ….” for each social media platform you use. Adding similar one-liners to your complementary printed marketing pieces will also drive traffic to your social media sites and increase exposure. The ability to incorporate social media platforms into both your email and direct mail campaigns can help unify your marketing efforts and enable you to better reach both customers and prospects.

When placing social media links—or any URLs, really—on direct mail pieces, keeping them short and easy to remember is a must. Long URLs are more likely to be misspelled when people retype them into a Web browser.

Social media platforms present an entirely different reason for using short URLs. On Twitter a tweet, or post, can be no longer than 140 characters. So if your link is 125 characters long, you’d have no room left to tell your followers about the link and why they should click on it.  

Because they make printed materials interactive, quick-response, or QR, codes are another way to integrate media. No matter where someone is, he can simply pull out his phone, scan a QR code, and instantly be directed to a Website, a video, a landing page, or any other piece of targeted information. The technology can be taken one step further to incorporate email: The QR code can direct customers or prospects to a landing page that will request their contact information, including email address, before sending them to a designated Website. Armed with that information, you can send a follow-up email with additional information, links to your social media profiles, and the like.

Taking a multichannel approach when it comes to your marketing strategy soon will become a requirement. If you have a variety of age groups and demographics within your audience, the chances are strong that each group spends the majority of time on different marketing media. Some groups might best be reached via a print ad in a magazine or a direct mail piece; others might respond more favourably to an email. 

Social media now accounts for 23% of America’s online time. Integrating them into your current marketing strategies is simple—so why not take advantage of the opportunity and communicate with your customers where they are most interested?

John Foley, Jr., is the founder/CEO of marketing solutions provider interlinkONE.

Toys “R” Us Hong Kong has launched an iPhone app that integrates QR codes, content and rewards. The app is primarily intended for Hong Kong’s 700,000 Toys “R” Us Star Card loyalty program members. By scanning QR Codes (referred to as unlocking “R” codes) that can be found in the Toys “R” Us catalog, on their website, in-store and on posters users can view videos and accumulate rewards.

The QR Codes were assembled into the shapes of animals that live hidden in the city and posted all over the streets of Hong Kong.

Scanning the codes in the animals allowed users to read more information about a band and hear their music. They could also purchase the songs directly as well as share them on social media.

The campaign was considered a success by the volume of sharing on blogs and social networks and the fact that more than half of the 14 bands sold out their albums within the first week.

The video below shows elements of the campaign with an English commentary, starting at the 30sec mark.

While many businesses are increasingly adopting digital marketing practices, new research conducted by Global Industry Analysts indicates that companies are also boosting their ad spend on direct mail marketing materials.

As Global Industry Analysts notes, direct mail has numerous advantages over other advertising mediums.

• The platform has the unique ability to affect consumers’ sense of touch,
• and mailers are also often personalized, maximizing the impact pieces can have on consumers.
• Additionally, the source claims that customers treat postal mail with higher regard in comparison to other marketing channels.

According to the report, the direct mail industry is gaining steady momentum in today’s digital world. Global Industry Analysts predicts that global marketing expenditures for postal mail will reach $25.45 billion in the immediate and near future.

The growth of the platform is largely buoyed by the effectiveness of the channel to reach consumers regardless of their income. Whereas online, television and other platforms depend on potential customers subscribing to a service to receive a message, anyone with a home can be contacted through direct mail.

In an effort to stave off advances by other platforms, companies are beginning to innovate the way they design creative pieces. For example,

• multidimensional mailers can help entrepreneurs create lasting impressions on consumer.
• Global Industry Analysts predicts that, as a result, the market for creative direct mail development will reach $200 million before 2012 in the United States.

Additionally, direct mail can be used to bolster the effects of digital marketing campaigns. For instance, using tracking technology, businesses could send consumers an email message on the same day a direct mail piece is set to arrive or they could use QR codes to drive recipients online to their retail websites.

"The direct mail advertising market will also stand to benefit from the growing importance of one-to-one interactive marketing and its role in effectively engaging thousands of prospective customers on a personal level," says the source.

Global Industry Analysts’ report echoes recent research conducted by MagnaGlobal. According to the marketing insights firm, direct mail will account for $19.17 billion ad spend worldwide during 2010, making it the top channel globally. MagnaGlobal expects direct mail to be used primarily by large corporations, though small and mid-size business owners will similarly be able to effectively integrate it into their marketing initiatives.

Currently when scanned, the QR-codes provide current information regarding the scheduled departure times at each location. Soon these departure times will be adjusted with real time information, in cases of delays.

Name: Tales of Things

Quick Pitch: Adding memories and stories to objects and places via the Internet of Things and read/write QR codes.

Genius Idea: The Internet of Things is a growing trend; the term defines the idea of objects that are tagged, web-connected and endowed with the ability to relay data. This startup is all about the Internet of Things; in fact, it helps ordinary people add objects to the Internet of Things with just a few simple tools, such as a smartphone and a printer.

Tales of Things has developed read/write QR codes that helps preserve memories that people have attached to objects or places. Once an object is labeled with a scannable QR code, its movements can be tracked, as well as any subsequent stories. Each object has the ability to tweet when its memories are scanned, as well.

All the user has to do is photograph the object or place to be tagged, write a few words or upload a video about it, print out a site-generated QR code and affix the code to the item or at the place. From that point forward, the place or thing can be tracked through TalesofThings.com.

The site’s creators call it the “antique roadshow of the future.”

Note the use of QR Codes at 2:05.

Tales of Things is funded through a £1.39 million research grant from the Digital Economy Research Councils UK. The project is a collaboration between Brunel University, Edinburgh College of Art, University College London, University of Dundee and the University of Salford.

The site went live in April and isn’t really intended as a money-making enterprise; rather, it’s a novel way to explore and interact with the things and places around us.

Have you tried Tales of Things or any other tagging-and-tracking sites related to the Internet of Things? What’s your take on this trend?

The QR code, or quick response code, is simply a two-dimensional bar code that came into being in 1994 and found a large audience in Japan. Stateside, however, QR codes — while clever for tying real-world objects to online content — have always remained on the outskirts of public awareness.

Nonetheless, we’ve seen QR codes employed for creative purposes. The Detroit Red Wings interactive programs and the giant QR codes in Times Square come to mind. Each of these serves as prime examples of how QR codes could be on the verge of their breakout moment.

What the technology needs in order to finally make it to the mainstream are applications that take the nerd-factor out of the QR code scan, and drive home the potential rewards of seeing a code, scanning it, and then engaging with the served-up content.

Stickybits and SCVNGR are startups that integrate the barcode scan in intelligent and fun ways. They’re poised to propel the movement of the next generation QR code, and here’s why.

The Potential of Collective Scanning

Stickybits brings context to real-world objects with its next generation approach to the QR code. The mobile app is primarily a barcode scanner — powered by Red Laser — but it takes the technology into the realm of fun by creating a social and shared experience around any item in the physical world that possesses a barcode.

Download the iPhone or Android application, scan your favorite cereal box, add an item — maybe a related recipe, but any video, photo, audio clip or comment will do — and you’ve just started a digital thread around that item.

Where Stickybits succeeds is in making the scan feel familiar. People have already caught on to using Red Laser to scan barcodes on packages for comparison pricing. So Stickybits is nothing more than a barcode scanner for comparison multimedia conversations. Same idea, different application.

It’s this approach that could finally help to bridge the gap between barcodes on packages and the still unfamiliar QR codes popping up in the real world. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Stickybits scans standard barcodes and QR codes, which eliminates the need for users to hunt down other QR code scanner apps.

Of course, Stickybits offers tons of potential for both brands and marketers. The service essentially creates a social graph around things (products), so that alone makes it a new platform for digital exposure.

The brands and marketers that can motivate fans to take to product-related conversation chains via Stickybits, with or without a nudge in the right direction, could find a distinct advantage over competitors. This is especially true for brands that find meaningful ways to participate, even it if is just by listening or following along. In this way, Stickybits is like a new frontier for savvy early adopter brands.

Stickybits also makes more aggressive brand plays possible. Pepsi, for example, signed on as a sponsor. Stickybits users who scan Pepsi cans and other Pepsi products will see a sponsored message from Pepsi atop the bits threads. It’s somewhat akin to Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and could prove to be both a money-making vehicle for Stickybits and an alternative way for advertisers to get exposure.

Success in this realm will certainly depend on the branded message that scanners see. Anything too pushy will discourage app users from scanning product barcodes, which would be a lose-lose for everyone.

For more guerilla-style street campaigns, Stickybits sells barcode stickers, and users can print codes onto gear or download and print their own codes from home.

Gaming and QR Codes, A Perfect Match

Location-based services have been around for years. Loopt and Brightkite were early pioneers in encouraging mobile owners to share their location with friends via GPS-enabled devices.

Both services are still around today and each have their own appeal, but Foursquare, the second coming of Dodgeball, has pushed location-sharing into mainstream hands. Foursquare did it by hooking users with simple and engaging game mechanics, and now everyone, especially Yelp, is anxious to follow suit.

SCVNGR — which bills itself as a mobile way to participate in place-based, scavenger hunt-like challenges — is in part a check-in application, but with the gaming experience at the core of the service. Users can check-in at a venue using the SCVNGR mobile app, but it’s what happens after the check-in that makes this an application worthy of note.

SCVNGR is all about activity, and while it can be used as a Foursquare alternative, there’s so much business appeal here that it kind of exists in a new category of its own. Cities, museums, small businesses, universities and even brokers have already turned to SCVNGR to create their own location-based treks for customers or fans.

goSmithsonian, for instance, used SCVNGR to build a trek through nine of the Smithsonian museums that require solving clues and completing challenges. More recently The Boston Globe’s trek involved five different content-driven, city-based challenges. Treks are about mobile, challenge-based discovery, so they’re certainly Foursquare and Gowalla-esque in nature, but as the Smithsonian and The Boston Globe examples demonstrate, there’s more here than just checkins.

It’s within these challenges and treks where QR codes make their appearance and find real-life relevance. SCVNGR supports QR code challenges, so players can be tasked to scan a QR code to complete the challenge and earn the points. Of course, the QR code challenge is also a nearly fail-proof way to ensure that a player is where they say they are, which means it adds verification to the checkin.

Since the application doubles as a QR code scanner, the scanning activity happens right within the game and helps to familiarize users with the foreign notion of a barcode scan. It’s this familiarization that will help make QR codes recognizable and decodable to the human eye.

Obviously marketers and brands alike have shown an increasing interest in creative location-based initiatives. As interest continues to grow in this space, SCVNGR has a solid shot at becoming the de facto mobile application to facilitate mobile scavenger hunts, and propel QR codes to mainstream adoption.

Challenges Still Remain

Amidst all the possibilities, barcode scanning apps and services still face a number of obstacles before the general public will embrace them.

The biggest hurdle is the fact that there are so many disparate applications that support QR code scanning, each with their own purpose or twist. Of course, there’s also custom barcode/scanner services like Microsoft Tag, which is progressive in its own way but requires that users have a special app (they can’t use generic QR code scanners) to process Tag codes in the real world.

It’s asking too much of people to make them distinguish between a regular barcode, a QR code and some other custom code. We need simplification and standards.

The barcode scan is also heavily dependent on the user wanting to interact with it. They have to pull out their smartphone, load up an app and scan the code in question. It’s a matter of a few seconds, but the barcode is likely a missed opportunity, lost in the real world as real people race to get from point A to point B. Thankfully, Stickybits and SCVNGR both tackle the “why should I scan this?” problem, and we’ll be watching closely to see if that’s enough to push this edgy technology beyond the niche.

More and more business people are looking to import business card information into their databases. So until bar-coding like QR Codes and Microsoft Tags become a standard feature on business cards, people are using some form of business card scanner with OCR technology.

Whether with an OCR mobile app (see below) or a flatbed scanner, OCR can drastically simplify the process of transferring contacts from paper to your contact management database.

But even the best OCR business card reader technology has limitations.

Cards with certain design features simply don’t scan well. And as scanning becomes more common, this is something that business card designers should keep in mind if they don’t want to use bar-coding. That contact was important enough for you to give your business card to; you need to make sure you make it easy for them to accurately add you to their contacts list.

So here are some helpful hints for creating a scannable business card.

Don’t:

• Use fancy fonts. These easily confuse OCR software, especially on letters like “c” and “e”. A clean font like Helvetica may seem boring, but it is easy for OCR to translate.
• Combine your name and title. Names and titles separated by a comma on a single line (such as “Nancy Nally, Editor”) don’t translate correctly in OCR.
• Overlay text on a pattern. This is too confusing for OCR.
• Angle text. Currently OCR scanning doesn’t translate text that isn’t parallel to the edges of the card.
• Mix orientations. Keep all the text oriented in the same direction.

Do:

• Keep it big. If you get squinty looking at your card, so will OCR software.
• Give text breathing room. Keep letters nicely spaced so that the OCR can distinguish them easily from each other.
• Keep it light. Cards with dark backgrounds seem impossible to scan (even those with high-contrast white text).
• Put your company name somewhere in text. OCR can’t translate stylised logos, so make sure the company’s name is in text somewhere too.
• Keep it on one side. Scanners only read one side of a card, so keep all the critical contact information on one side.

This last issue is a very common problem with many cards. Double-sided printing is becoming very “trendy” which creates the temptation to spread the critical contact information on both sides of the card, making it inaccessible to card reading technology.

Ideally, you should have contact information on only one side of the card, and then use the other side for a logo or mini sales brochure. Here at CQ we have the ability to print a different back on each card in a set, offering the ability to get very creative with a card back’s promotional uses. Meanwhile, the front of the card can hold all of the traditional contact information in a clean and simple (scannable) format.