 21 Communications has launched an innovative marketing platform called iScout, which allows brand marketers to visually connect with consumers through their mobile phones.
“iScout promises to revolutionize the way that companies interact with their customers by allowing consumers connect with their brand – anytime, anywhere,” says David Turchetti, CEO of 21 Communications.
At the heart of the new technology is a visual recognition system connected to a mobile phone network. It allows a customer to take a photo of any designated image with their mobile phone – a company logo or any other image chosen by a company – and have their mobile phone instantly connected to a company's mobile portal.
From there, a consumer can download ringtones, wallpaper, mobile phone coupons, promotional videos or any kind of branded content that the company chooses.
“Almost any marketing material, magazine and newspaper advertisements, signs, billboards, product packaging or displays, can now become a hyperlink to a company's mobile portal,” says Turchetti.
“It brings traditional media to life,” he continued. “This gives a company the opportunity to create an instant, meaningful and interactive relationship with their consumers just at moment of the consumer's interest. It offers the consumer instant gratification and moves traditional media from low-performance impression based marketing platforms to interactive real-time vehicles for engaging consumers.”
The technology, originally invented by US company, Neven Vision, had its first worldwide launch in Germany last October with Coca-cola's “CokeFridge” campaign. In the campaign, Coca-cola challenged its consumers to snap photos of its CokeFridge across the country and send them back to Coke via MMS (multimedia messaging service). Users instantly received a soccer game called, “Home Turf” and a mobile iCoke client enabling them to collect “iCoke coins” in order to receive further prizes.
Turchetti sees the technology as a natural fit for the China market where mobile phone users outnumber Internet users by nearly 4 to 1. “Besides the sheer numbers of mobile phone users in China, over 400 million, mobile phones allow a consumer to be reached 24/7 anywhere, anytime without the need for a bulky PC. Mobile phone numbers are also kept far longer than email addresses, allowing for more effective CRM programs. The marketing profiles of users who opt-in to mobile phone campaigns are often much more sophisticated than those who opt-in to internet campaigns,” he says.
Currently, the number of WAP users in China (the technology which allows mobile phones to connect to the Internet) numbers around 100 million, roughly the same amount of PC Internet users in China. However, many experts expect that the number of WAP users in China will grow by 16% a year, outstripping the number of users who connect to the internet via PC by 2008.
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