Marketing the QR Code...

These small & black looking 2D images have been popping up all over the place - print adds, retail units, visiting cards, on soap cartons, candy wrappers, I can even see them within laptop DVD trays once you pop-them out to put your DVD in.

These QR codes have become a must have to all Marketers, everyone of them is coming up with innovative ways to communicate & market them. The creative agencies have them on their visiting cards through which details printed can transferred onto your contacts within a jiffy, retailers have them in-store to scan & avail discounts, mobile chargers have them in case you need to find out where to get a replacement - the list goes on, & quite innovative these usages.

Now comes the pertinent discussion, in a world of the QR code, does the consumer fundamentally see a benefit or atleast the lure of a benefit, or an associated value that he/she associates with that brand just because that brand is looker 'hipper' because of a QR Code? 

For many marketers any of the above rational associations would mean that their QR code is working in delivering its desired intent. 

In India the smartphones growth is around a 100% every year & poised to reach 100 million+ units by the end of this financial year in an overall base of 900 million+. But QR Code readers (which are to be generally downloaded) available on such phones are a far smaller number, 5 million itself might be an over statement.

Nevertheless this number is poised to grow. Which means that the QR code plans that marketers use have to be of a far higher order, rather than being generic & simple.

The current users of this technology (started in Toyota's manufacturing subsidiary) in India will be the younger or professional crowd whose access to high end smartphones & apps are far higher.

This means their engagement level can also be expected to be higher, maybe leading them on to spend more on the desired brand being marketed through a higher level of involvement.

QR Code led augmented reality, internet app discounts, direct interactive uploads, retail window shopping experience - the lists & implications could be endless.

There is also the QR Code design front - majority of the brands use a simple black 2D image, while a few have flirted with some colours & text too. But technically these QR code designs can be improved to have a better connect & design adherence to your overall brand language.

Umbrella Branding

As with all effective brand strategy, umbrella brands require a single message, an expression of a commonsense benefit grounded in human emotion that opens the way to own the conversation within a business category.

Umbrella brands abound in business; examples include Virgin, Kellogg’s, Sony, and location brands such as Japan, Manitoba, and St. Louis.

With an umbrella brand, the number of interactions the consumer has with the brand increase significantly, thereby reinforcing the brand values, and it helps transfer the goodwill to new products and categories. But the umbrella brand needs to be focused: It must stand for the same values across the category or range of products, and have the same emotional link.

Generally, consumer durables and services brands have used umbrella branding, while FMCGs have not, but even they have resorted to brand extensions rather than new launches.

Independent brands only make sense when the product clearly has a different proposition from the company brand; like Lexus from Toyota and Swatch from Omega.

In the case of Asian Paints, there were so many sub-brands, there was a reduction of media weights for advertising each entity. Then, the company shifted to a brand-centric portfolio, which involved a change of logo, product names, packaging and advertising. But the response from the trade and consumers has been positive, overall brand synergy and shop presence have increased, and the advertising is more effective, he added.

So unless the product is clearly different in the mind of the consumer, umbrella branding is the way to go. NIVEA is a great international example of an Umbrella Brand