Mobile barcodes: Allure results from Microsoft Tag $725k give-away

Back in July, GoMo News reported that Allure magazine was launching a give-away promotion powered by Microsoft Tag mobile barcodes. The contest gave away $725,000 of beauty products over the course of a month, to people who scanned the Tags with their mobile devices. And Allure is reporting an impressive increase of entrants into the contest, which it attributes to Tag.

How did it work?

All during August, any mobile owner who scanned a Tag in the magazine was automatically entered into the “Free Stuff” draw. In previous years when the Free Stuff contest ran, entrants had to check by computer to see if a new draw was available, and then enter over the Internet. This year, by registering through a mobile barcode, the customer could get sent an SMS every time a new product was up for grabs – and then enter the new draw by scanning a Tag. No computer needed.

What were the results?

• There were 38% more entries into the draws this year than last year – and thanks to the analytics built into the Microsoft Tag system, 28% of these entries are directly attributable to barcode scans
• Mobile users entered more draws than PC users – an average of 25 times per mobile entrant, and 9.4 times for PC entrants.
• It worked out well for Allure from an advertising perspective as well, as 34% of mobile entrants opted in for more information.

What we think?

I love results like this. Too often you see announcements for big barcode campaigns, and never see what the results are. Now, obviously, with results as good as this they were never going to keep it under wraps. But it shows just how much Microsoft Tag has grabbed consumer attention in the magazine and newspaper space. And it’s not just because of the pretty colours – the Tag scanner runs on pretty much any device (check out the huge full list). For magazine publishers, they can be guaranteed that pretty much any of their readers that do decide to scan the Tag will be able to do so on the spur of the moment.