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Mobile Action Codes: Image Recognition and Augmented Reality Emerging

Mobile



April 2013 -- The number of mobile action codes -- QR codes, digital watermarks, image recognition and other types -- has grown dramatically in the past 2 years, reports mobile engagement services company Nellymoser.

Over a two-year period beginning in January 2011, the total number of interactive codes featured in print increased from a monthly total of 88 to a count of 1,143 in December 2012.

Interestingly, in 2012 Nellymoser found a full one-third of activations were not optimized for the mobile experience.
 
For their 2012 analysis, Nellymoser surveyed the top 100 U.S. national magazines by circulation, analyzing over 173,000 magazine pages featuring 75,000+ total advertising pages. The firm activated every trigger, augmented reality experience, or other mobile activation code found with an iPhone or Android device. From there, Nellymoser ran every campaign, watched every video and visited every web page.

NEARLY ONE IN 10 ADS FEATURE ACTION CODES
     
IMAGE RECOGNITION AND AUGMENTED REALITY GAINING GROUND
         
HOW ACTION CODES ARE USED
 
In contrast to 2011, where magazine readers were often sent to a web site after scanning a code, in 2012 more advertisers created engaging mobile experiences.
       
ONE-THIRD OF ACTIVATIONS NOT OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE
   

     

Source: Nellymoser, Print to Mobile Sees Emergence of Image Recognition and Augmented Reality in 2012, April 10, 2013.