Brandcoding? JAGTAG launches new mobile barcode advertising at CES

We’ve covered JAGTAG a few time here before at GoMo News – it’s an interesting mobile barcode service, and is one of the few that doesn’t require an application to work. At the Consumer Electronics Show, JAGTAG has partnered with NBC Universal to promote a new advertising service: brandcodes.

What’s JAGTAG?

JAGTAG is a mobile 2D barcode service. Like other services, it requires you to take a picture of a mobile barcode in order to work. But unlike most other services, it doesn’t require you to have a reader application installed on your device. Instead, you send the pic by MMS to the JAGTAG server, where it does the recognition work. Whatever it is that the barcode links to (a URL, some content, an information SMS, etc.) is then sent back to your phone via SMS or MMS. So JAGTAG will work on any phone that has a camera on it, no matter how old. It doesn’t require a smartphoner.

What’s this “brandcoding” business then?

It pretty much does what it says on the tin. It’s a brand advertising service being offered by JAGTAG, and being promoted by NBC Universal (NBCU) at CES. NBCU is the official broadcasting partner of CES, and has specially created JAGTAGs displayed on screens in its booth at the show. Camera phone owners can use the codes to access information about the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on the NBCU mobile website, as well as receive discount coupons for Winter Olympics merchandise.

Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC News VP said that “for NBC Universal, being at CES is all about interacting with attendees, and demonstrating that fundamentally, great content is what fuels all the cutting edge technologies rolled out every year at the show. Having the JAGTAG interactive opportunity is a great way to engage our booth visitors, and to offer them a prize that connects with our coverage of the Vancouver Games, just a few weeks away.”

For JAGTAG, the entire event is about letting brands know that the brandcoding initiative exists, and can be simply placed on any kind of printed or display media. “2D brandcodes can be created quickly to fit any brand marketer’s need to extend their campaigns and create a call to action with engaging, ‘consumer pull initiated’ multimedia content to the mobile,” said Ken Graffeo, Business Development Executive, JAGTAG.

What we think?

I’m actually a big fan of JAGTAG. Part of the reason that mobile barcodes have had a slow start outside of Japan is that there is no real standardisation in either the EU or USA. There are a bunch of different readers and barcodes out there, and they’re all being used all over. But JAGTAG skips all that by using technology that is completely standard across all mobiles – the simple text, workhorse of the mobile industry.

There are two problems with the system, though. First is cost. If you’re paying MMS rates per barcode, then JAGTAGS are comparatively more expensive over time than single application download. Second is fragmentation. JAGTAG then ruins the good work is has by using MMS by having a proprietary barcode system. JAGTAGs are a unique 2D code that don’t work with any other system, and the JAGTAG reader doesn’t read other codes. If JAGTAG could apply the same MMS-based technology to QR and Datamatrix, there would be an incredible proposition.