MyClick Signs Mobile Image Recognition Deal With Pepsi

MyClick's patented photo recognition technology, not bar codes, opens up a world of opportunities for mobile marketing.

From Washington post MyClick Signs Mobile Image Recognition Deal With Pepsi

Two-year old Hong Kong company MyClick, an image recognition mobile marketing firm as it calls itself, that it has signed a deal with Pepsi to create an advertising campaign for it in China, aimed at 12-24 year olds.

MyClick

MyClick's technology works much like mobile barcodes, but instead of consumers snapping a picture of a 2D barcode, or QR code, they take a picture of any image?such as a logo, or a photograph?that is bordered by a MyClick frame.

MyClick's frame acts much as a 2D barcode, sending users to a specially created mobile web site for more information, or downloads. Pepsi is using MyClick in its latest promotional contest where consumers are being asked to create a profile on any of China's six major online portals for a chance to appear on Pepsi cans, which will come out during the Summer Olympics.

MyMedia is apparently doing quite well for itself in China, having already racked up an impressive number of campaigns with big international brands, including Coca Cola, Motorola, Estee Lauder, Northwest Airlines, Adidas and Pizza Hut among others.

Images are free for users to click on as well as the airtime on the web site that consumers are sent to. Advertisers pay MyMedia per click, which then splits the revenue with the carrier.

Is Physical World Connection Starting To Happen?

Are we starting to see the tipping point for Physical World Connection PWC?

I am seeing more consumer good products with 2d barcodes placed next to the old 1d barcode.

DuPont is starting to place the21st Century Barcode on consumer good packaging. The next step is for mobile marketing companies to build campaigns around these. Using a camera phone and a barcode scanning application, a consumer can scan this 2d code and be directed to any website.

Colgate-Palmolive appears to be the company in front offering the most physical world hyperlinks on their products.

In Jan 2008, physical world connection player Scanbuy , will be launching a pilot in the US, with the 5 biggest carriers.

Next time you're in the supermarket, take a look at what companies are starting to place 2d codes next to 1d codes. These companies should be the ones introducing PWC in their advertising campaigns.

There will two main forms of Physical World Connection.

First, 2d barcodes will already be placed on consumer goods and will act as a physical world hyperlink that the brand can use for various advertising. In addition to a cashier scanning a 1d code at register, a consumer could scan a 2d code and be directed to a website.

Second, individuals will be able to create and place their own 2d barcode allowing a direct connection when scanned with a camera phone to the Internet (FaceBook, MySpace, ecommerce site, etc).

It would make sense for GoDaddy or Verisign to start offering this application when domains are purchased don't you think?

China Uses 2D Barcodes For Mobile Ads

This article does a good job of summarizing the Chinese Physical World Connection players.

From Business Week China:Cracking the Mobile Ad Biz

The lucrative potential of the mainland's tech-starved mobile advertising market could be unlocked by two-dimensional barcodes (2d codes).

A new kind of mobile advertising technology, however, could be the key that unlocks the country's 461 million mobile phone screens to advertisers.

The technology uses two-dimensional barcodes, a more evolved cousin of the humble Universal Product Code found on groceries, to create an advertising channel with an aura of science-fiction.

Two-dimensional barcodes can be used to bridge the online and offline worlds, turning, say, a coffee table into a physical hyperlink, and your mobile phone into a giant mouse pointer. You "click" the barcode on the coffee table by taking a picture of it with the camera on your phone, and then are automatically taken online.

For a three-month period that ended in February, Chinese barcode pioneer Gmedia provided Starbucks with barcodes to display on tabletops in the chain's 50 outlets in Beijing. When a user clicked on one, they were linked to a website that allowed them to redeem a free coffee.

Another company trying to cash in on physical hyperlinking is Hong Kong-based MyClick . Although it uses a patented photo recognition technology, not barcodes, the end result is virtually identical. Any visual medium - a magazine page, billboard or television commercial - can carry an image framed by a special border. The user simply snaps a photo of the framed image.

"Advertisers will know where someone was when they clicked the ad and guess what they were doing at that moment," said Sage Brennan of research firm JLM Pacific Epoch. "If [barcode-reading software] is in every handset around the country, the incentive to insert a tiny code [in advertisements] is huge."

Gmedia and Inspiry , which promotes its own standard, have announced partnerships with China Mobile. Inspiry has also persuaded handset manufacturers to pre-install its software in "hundreds of thousands" of units, according to Lawrence Tse, a general partner at venture capitalist firm Gobi Partners , which has invested in the company