We have just released the latest ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report for Q4 2011. This edition takes a closer look at the busiest quarter of the year for mobile barcodes and some year-end growth comparisons to 2010.

One of the report’s highlights shows the “hockey stick” growth of scans by quarter dating all the way back to Q1 2009. Last year saw a 300% increase compared to 2010. Looking at the chart below, its pretty amazing to see just how far mobile barcode scanning has come these past few years.

The holiday season proved to be another huge period for engaging new users as people are searching for product information and millions of new Smartphones were activated.

Other key takeaways from this report:

• Q4 2011 saw more scans than all of 2009 and 2010 combined
• Over 3,000,000 new ScanLife users were activated in Q4 2011

• Among marketers using the ScanLife platform, the Consumer Packaged Goods industry saw the most scans for the first time ever
• Half of our users report being 18-34, and 60% are male which is consistent with the previous report

A HUGE thank you to everyone to everyone who made these numbers possible!  This data is compiled from our platform users, app users, and other 3rd party apps/code generators.

You can download the full report here.

We’re thrilled to announce the release of the ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report for Q3 2011. This edition marks the one year anniversary of the inaugural report, so we have  focused on how far mobile barcodes have come in the past 12 months.

One of the report’s highlights is the total number of scans processed by ScanLife to date. Through September, we’ve seen over 20 million scans, representing a 400% increase from 2010 during the same time period. This massive number shows just how explosive growth has been for mobile barcodes.

Other key takeaways from this report:

• 2D code activity continues to rise at an impressive rate, as 44,653 2D codes were generated from the ScanLife platform in Q3 of this year.

• Another demonstration of scan growth is around our single largest customer campaign.  A year ago the largest campaign saw 65,000 scans and in Q3 a customer completed a 6-week campaign that netted over 400,000 scans.
• The number of countries scanning in a single day also increased from 77 to 128, a 66% increase.

• Female scans increased by 13% and now represent over 40% of the ScanLife mobile app audience.
• Over the past year, the Grocery (food & drink) category jumped from 14% to 40% in all 1D products scanned.

A big thank you to everyone who made these numbers possible!

You can download the full report here.

To help celebrate “Mobile Marketing Week”, ScanLife is going to be giving away daily prizes starting today through September 9th.  All you need to do to enter is brush up on your mobile barcode knowledge.  “The QR Quest: Scan Your Way to Victory” Contest works this way:

1. Follow us on Twitter
2. Each day, a QR Code will be tweeted that links to a trivia question related to mobile barcodes
3. Just scan the code, and answer the question
4. If you are correct, tweet your conquest and you’re entered for the daily prize including gift cards from our favorite customers!

Need some help?  Here are a few key stats that might give you some hints:

- Scans come from over 125 different countries every day.

- 2D barcode scanning is currently outpacing the growth of 1D barcodes, a major shift from 2010

- Comscore found that more than 14M people scanned a code in the month of  June alone

- Over 45,000 2D barcodes were generated from the ScanLife platform in the 2nd quarter, a 300% increase from a year ago.

- Over 400,000 unique UPC codes, or products, were scanned by the ScanLife app in a single month.

You can also download the latest Mobile Barcode Trend Report here which has all the details.

Good luck, and happy Mobile Marketing Week….

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Here is some legal stuff for your enjoyment:

Eligibility: No purchase is necessary to enter the Contests. The Contests are open to all legal U.S. and Canada residents (other than residents of Quebec) 18 years of age and older at the start of the Entry Period (as defined below). Employees of Scanbuy, or those of its subsidiaries, advertising and production agencies, and other companies directly involved in the implementation and/or operation of the Contests, along with their immediate families and household members, are not eligible to participate in the Contests. All federal, state, provincial, and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited or restricted, in any manner. By entering a Contest, entrants agree to be bound by these Contest Rules and the decisions of Scanbuy and/or its authorized agents. Use of automated devices is strictly prohibited. An entrant shall only be entitled to win one (1) prize per ninety (90) day period and no entrant shall be entitled to win more than one (1) prize (by entering multiple Contests) in any ninety (90) day period.

Agreement to Contest Rules: By entering a Contest, you indicate your full and unconditional agreement to, and acceptance of, (a) these Contest Rules and (b) Scanbuy’s decisions, which are final and binding. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth in these Contest Rules.

Contests Timeframe: All Contests will take place in conjunction with Mobile Marketing Week, which will take place September 5^th through September 9^th.

Entry Period: A Contest begins when @ScanLife posts a link via Twitter leading to a QR code that contains the official giveaway question (“Official Giveaway Question” can be accessed by scanning the QR code with a mobile device equipped with a camera phone and mobile barcode scanning application) and ends when @ScanLife and/or @Scanbuy receives an @ reply with the correct answer to the Official Giveaway Question (as determined by Scanbuy in its sole and absolute discretion) from an eligible participant (“Entry Period”). Scanbuy’s computer is the official time-keeping device for each Contest.

How To Enter: Follow @ScanLife on Twitter and submit an @ reply to @ScanLife via Twitter with the correct answer to the Official Giveaway Question posted by Sponsor during the Entry Period. Only one (1) entry per person per Contest. Any attempt by a person to submit more than one (1) entry by using multiple/different Twitter accounts, identities, registrations, or logins, or through any other methods, shall void all of such person’s entries and such person shall be disqualified from the applicable Contest. In the event of a dispute over the identity of an entrant, the entrant will be the registered owner of the Twitter account.

Selection of Winner: At the end of the Entry Period Scanbuy will enter all correct responses (as determined by Scanbuy in its sole and absolute discretion) to the Official Giveaway Question posted by Scanbuy into a pool of potential prize winners, and the winner will be selected randomly. The winner will be notified by Scanbuy via tweet and/or direct message within three (3) days after the applicable Entry Period ends and will be asked to provide his or her full name and shipping address. In order to receive a direct message from Scanbuy, you must (a) be following @ScanLife on Twitter and (b) have your account settings set to “unprotected” and/or “public.” The winner will have three (3) days to respond to the direct message with their name and shipping address. If a winner cannot be contacted or fails to confirm his or her eligibility and shipping address within three (3) days of notification, an alternate winner will be selected by Scanbuy. Selection of winners will be conducted by Scanbuy, whose decisions are final.

Prizes: Each winner of a particular Contest shall be entitled to receive one (1) of the following prizes (as determined by Sponsor in its sole and absolute discretion):

• Gift Cards from various Scanbuy customers

All prizes awarded are non-transferable and cannot be redeemed for cash or credit (in whole or in part). Any prize notification or prize returned as undeliverable will be forfeited and awarded to an alternate winner. By accepting a prize, each winner agrees to be responsible for all federal, state, provincial, local, or other applicable taxes associated with acceptance and use of the prize. Once a prize has been delivered to a winner, all liability for any loss or damage, including any property damage, personal injury, or death to the prize winner or any third party shall be the sole responsibility of the prize winner and the prize winner shall indemnify and hold harmless Scanbuy and its affiliates for any claims therefore.

Release of Liability: By participating in a Contest, you release Scanbuy and its subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, employees, directors, agents, advertising agencies, and others associated with the implementation and/or operation of such Contest, from and against any and all injury, loss, or damage caused or claimed to be caused by your participation in such Contest and/or the acceptance, awarding, receipt, use and/or misuse of any prize. Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event that the preceding release is determined by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or void for any reason, each entrant agrees that, by entering a Contest, (i) any and all disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with such Contest, or any prizes awarded, shall be resolved individually without resort to any form of class action; (ii) any claims, judgments, and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering such Contest, but in no event attorney’s fees; and (iii) under no circumstances will any entrant be permitted to obtain any award for, and entrant hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, incidental, or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than damages for actual out-of-pocket expenses. Each entrant acknowledges and agrees that the Contests are not endorsed or sponsored by Twitter in any manner whatsoever.

Privacy and Publicity: Any information you submit as part of a Contest will be used for purposes of such Contest and will be kept private. Except where prohibited, participation in a Contest constitutes an entrant’s consent to Scanbuy’s use of his/her name, likeness, voice, opinions, biographical information, and state of residence for Contest purposes in any media without further payment or consideration.

Disputes: Except where prohibited, you agree that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with, a Contest or any prize awarded shall be resolved exclusively by the appropriate court located in New York, New York. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Contest Rules, your rights and obligations, or the rights and obligations of Scanbuy in connection with a Contest, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules.

Comscore just released some dedicated survey results validating the growth of QR Code adoption in the United States.  The survey found that more than 14M people scanned a code in the month of  June alone! This reinforces some of the numbers we’ve been estimating of around 40-45M people in the US that have downloaded a barcode scanning app in the past year.

Some other great stats tell us where people are scanning from (both the media and the physical location):

What really strikes us here is the wide variety of places that codes are being scanned from.  50% from magazines is to be expected, but almost 12% from TV is amazing!

Some other suprising stats here:

• For a technology  that is best “on the go”, it’s amazing that 58% scanned from home (presumably where they have a PC).  This shows how reliant people have become on their mobile device for more information.
• Retail is an obvious place to be scanning, but it is also encouraging to see that 25% have done so from a grocery store where most people have little time to spare.

The survey also includes information on demographics of people scanning, much of which reflects data from our latest Trend Report.

Gender: Males make up 60% (exactly the same as our data)

Largest age group:  24-34 at 37% (we showed 33%)

Again, great to see a large 3rd party like Comscore start releasing some data on the behavior and adoption of QR Codes.   We hope this will encourage everyone to get involved if you haven’t already!

Every quarter we publish data showing the significant growth in mobile barcode scanning.  This edition is a little different as we are now sharing some hard numbers that really show what we see every day.  Information like how frequently consumers are actually doing this, what are they scanning, and how many marketers are really publishing codes.

For example, in the time you read this blog post, 60 unique scans were processed through the ScanLife system!  (Maybe some of you are speed readers, but we are now processing more than one scan per second and a year ago it was 10 per minute). 

That comes from both our app, other apps, our codes, and other codes.  Bottom line is that a lot of people are now scanning codes from all over the world.  In fact, we believe there are roughly 45 million people in North America alone that have a code scanning app on their device today.

Why is this happening?  People are buying Smartphones in droves, they need easy ways to get more information, tens of thousands of QR Codes are being published in the market, and millions of UPC codes are already on products.  Once you add all of this together, barcode scanning is taking off.

Some other key takeaways from this report:

- Scans come from over 125 different countries every day.

- 2D barcode scanning is currently outpacing the growth of 1D barcodes, a major shift from 2010.

- Over 45,000 2D barcodes were generated from the ScanLife platform in the 2nd quarter, a 300% increase from a year ago.

- Over 400,000 unique UPC codes, or products, were scanned by the ScanLife app in a single month.

- The number of females scanning increased 13%, and the 35-44 age-group increased 8% from the last quarter showing a continued trend toward the mainstream.

You can download the full report here.  We hope that this information provides a little insight as to what’s happening in the space, and keep scanning!

Due to the enormous growth of mobile barcode technology, thousands of marketers are turning to QR codes to engage with their audience. While great news, we’ve found that many codes are providing a poor user experience simply because the codes were published incorrectly. Some codes are not scanning at all, making them useless and discouraging to potential customers. 

As a perfect example of “when QR codes go wrong”, we were sent a recent issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Inside just one section alone, we spotted three different cases where each of the marketers published a QR code that didn’t even work!

To help you avoid this issue, let’s take a quick look at what these particular codes did wrong;

- Lack of Quiet Space: Every QR Code should be surrounded by at least 2 module sizes of ”quiet” or “white” space (modules are the tiny black squares within the code).  The code below lacked this requirement, and was unable to scan as a result.  

- Too Much Density: It’s critical to ensure that your code isn’t too dense. Density becomes a concern when your code includes lots of data and is shrunk down to a smaller size. The code gets too cluttered in a small amount of space, which makes it more difficult or in this case, impossible to read.   

- Poor Dimensions: A QR code has to be square. It cannot be circular, triangular, or anything in between. Square or bust, period.

All of these issues are common risks when using free generators because you lack consistency and quality control over your codes.

Just remember, whatever code generator you choose, please, please (please) test it first across several apps and devices. Merely one bad user experience can turn a customer off QR codes forever!

So consider these tips as step 1-A of “QR Codes 101”, as the single most important thing to remember is “does the code work?”

ScanLife has just released it’s third edition of the Mobile Barcode Trend Report which looks at data and analysis from UPC and 2D barcode scanning aggregated across 30 countries around the world. This data includes scans from both the ScanLife app and other 3rd party apps.

Below is an infographic with some highlights from the report.  Download the complete PDF to see why people like Coca-Cola and George Bush!

ScanLife gave a webinar entitled “Understanding Mobile Barcodes” hosted by Verizon on March 3, 2011.  It covered a variety of topics including:

• Barcode 101:  What, Why, and Where
• Activating a Barcode Campaign
• Barcode Strategies & Tactics
• Campaign Examples & Best Practices
• Developer Tools & Customization

Thousands of small, local businesses have accessed ScanLife over the past year to mobilize their traditional media. In fact, nearly half of our accounts are businesses like restaurants, retail stores, or real estate agents that use codes to link to websites, special discounts and other forms of content.  While this technology is also used by big brands with huge budgets, its been built to work easily for virtually any marketer of any size.

Getting started on ScanLife is simple.  Just log in, choose from a wide variety of code actions from Web to Email to Twitter, and then link to your content – much of it you probably already have!  Let’s take a look at a few ways ScanLife can be used in a matter of minutes.

Strategy Options

Strategy: Loyalty

Recommended Code Action(s): Note Code

Example: Users can scan a Note Code and automatically get a note message with a discount offer. Your business can switch the type of offer on the Note Code at any time so that it changes on a daily basis.  Put the code on a store front window or menu to deliver offers that are always being updated.

Note Code Screenshot

Strategy: Social Networking

Recommended Code Action(s): Menu, Twitter

Example: When users scan a Menu Code, they are taken to a page that displays up to five different options which could all link to various social networking sites. This is great way to increase Facebook “Likes”, Twitter followers or Foursquare check-ins for your business. Or you can also direct people to your YouTube channel to show product demos and new features. One of our new features is the Twitter Code, which allows users to send out a pre-filled tweet about the product they just scanned. If you’re looking to generate a buzz on Twitter, then this is the right code for you!  You can even create a code that links to your Groupon Deal.  Just get the link and send the code out as another way for people to access your deal of the day.

(more…)

The mobile barcode space is moving very quickly, and it’s exciting to see marketers and users embrace the technology.  Ads are popping up right and left with QR codes, many of them powered by ScanLife.

But, with growth comes growing pains which we try to help our users  avoid.  One feature our system offers is the ability to change the code content whenever you want.  So if you have to print the code before your website is ready, you just log in, edit and everything is updated.  This also comes in handy if you happened to make a mistake on the content you entered.

If you use other “non managed” or “direct” code generators, you cannot change what is embedded in that code.  So you have to be very sure it’s right before you save it, and before you print it.

Unfortunately, one marketer discovered this issue the hard way.  We don’t want to pick on anyone, but it’s just a good example of what can go wrong.  The below Onstar ad ran on the back of Entertainment Weekly.  They used a direct code which has one major issue – it’s missing a backslash after the http header.  Therefore, many code reading apps (including ScanLife) do not recognize this as an actual URL so the website cannot even be launched!

Code from Onstar Ad

This technology is really very simple, but things can go wrong.  We hope that examples like this will quickly become distant memories, as everyone becomes experts!