Mr. Ives’s article clearly highlights the issue our business partners all know very well – our image recognition software has the ability to recognize barcodes, tags, QR codes or any other symbol – but there is absolutely no need to use them.

As Mr. Ives cites, our barcode-based competitors see only a few thousand (in some cases only a few hundred) consumer responses with their campaigns, whereas in one campaign alone our partner saw over 600,000 consumer responses. Frankly, there is no comparison, nor can there be.

We look at something like this:

and we scratch our heads and ask, “Why would someone do this?” As a CEO, if my marketing department presented this to me, knowing (1) how much money is spent on ad creative and placement, (2) the importance of conveying the optimal message to consumers and (3) how crucial brand image is in the attempt to positively influence consumer behavior, I would seriously question whether I had the right people in my marketing department.

What exactly is the message this advertisement is attempting to convey to potential consumers?

What is that thing which occupies 50% of the page and what does it have to do with the image of the brand or the content of the ad?

Barcodes play a critical role in the supply chain of every product, but have no need to do so in areas which are consumer-facing. No matter how colorful or clever one tries to make them, barcodes of any kind are, simply-put, unattractive. They do not enhance an image in any way whatsoever:

They are also completely unnecessary. We have spent years building proprietary patented technology which works by recognizing the entire image and returning whatever kind of information or experience the advertiser, broadcaster or retailer wants their consumers and users to receive – from special promotions to coupons to videos, augmented reality, games and more.  An enormous amount of time, resources and money is spent on every piece of marketing collateral. Our technology works with it as it was intended to be seen, with no changes to the creative.

Please click HERE to view a recent Case Study about our wildly successful partnership with Woman’s Day referenced in Mr.Ives’ AdAge article.

This is what an advertisement looks like which employs our technology:

Note the absence of any kind of intrusive symbols. Users simply take a picture of the ad with their phone and we allow the advertisers (in this case our partners Coty and Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Lovers fragrance line) to return any kind of information they would like.

Our technology works on any phone with a camera, requires no downloads and works across all carriers. Of course, we also build highly sophisticated and successful apps for smartphones, as an app can provide a much richer user experience, and apps do need to be downloaded. Our Barnes & Noble app, for example, currently has over 1.5 million users and remains a top ten application in Apple’s iTunes App Store, 8 months after launch. However, our technology does not require an app to work – it only requires a phone with a camera.

Mr Ives’ AdAge article addresses the point a rapidly growing number of our new customers have come to realize: barcodes are garnering a lot of attention, but they are really not the best solution. Our technology works because it disrupts neither the creative nor the workflow itself – all that’s needed is the original ad.

Advertisers and retailers continue to experiment with the various alternatives, and we see some customers moving amongst the different competitors in response to artificial pricing or corporate pressures. Our results speak for themselves –Recognition accuracy in excess of 96% – Conversion rates of 25% – and more than 600,000 users interacting with a single campaign.  These are the kind of results we want to help you achieve.

To find out how, please contact us! We want to ensure your ads don’t turn out like this:

Image Credits: STA Travel/JagTag, Esquire Magazine, Coty/Harajuku Lovers & Mad Magazine (in order)

In financial terms the first question with any new campaign is:  ”What’s the Return on Investment (ROI)?“   For an advertisement to be successful with the consumer, the end result had better be worth the effort! Unfortunately, both the Intel and Warner Bros campaigns missed the mark.  Intel’s ad ran in Wired Magazine, delivering up a YouTube video from the recent CES Las Vegas that showed how Intel technology could be used in the future … yawn.  Warner Bros did a bit better by delivering up some movie trailers via barcodes on pizza boxes during Super Bowl season.

Today’s mobile consumer is savvy and sophisticated. If they’re going to engage with a new technology, they deserve a response that is tailored to them and pertinent to their needs.

Japanese mobile campaigns regularly deliver up worthy promotional items to consumers — including valuable coupons & discounts, instant buying opportunities and often the opportunity to win even more prizes. In the U.S., after asking the consumer to engage, both the Intel and Warner Bros campaigns returned ho-hum responses of limited or no value — a negative ROI. Result: The campaigns failed.

From the advertiser’s perspective, in addition to creating an unsuccessful campaign, the use of barcodes or QR codes on ads require changing and modifying what they’ve paid graphic designers thousands of dollars to create.

LinkMe Mobile takes a different approach.  First, no unattractive barcodes, QR codes or other changes to the advertisement are needed.  The consumer just snaps a picture of the ad and sends it in via SMS, MMS or email. Our patented image recognition technology takes care of the rest.  Our solution allows the ad to shine as it was intended to look — not only do we hold the patents, but our image recognition technology returns an accuracy rate higher than 96%.

Our earliest image recognition campaigns began more than 4 years ago in Japan – and were highly successful in their high tech market.  That success has expanded across the globe in the UK, China and the U.S. in highly engaging campaigns with partners like Barnes & Noble, Lions Gate, China Telecom, Clear Channel, Coty Cosmetics, Nestle, Fiat, Woman’s Day and many others.

LinkMe Mobile creates campaigns that can be easily delivered by our clients, are readily used by the consumer, and contain pertinent, useful, exciting content… a simple, but invaluable concept!

Ken Richards, CFO

** Please click here to contact us if you’re interested in an image or voice recognition campaign for your company.  We’d love to hear from you!

Image Credit:  Ralph Lauren

The iPad appears to make the most of the best features of the iPhone and iPod touch, but seems to have neglected some lessons we all thought they had learned. Perhaps this is simply a way of keeping options open to deliver new features with subsequent versions, but I think everyone was disappointed to see the absence of multi-tasking. For a device which is clearly targeted at the heart of Netbooks — complete with a 10 inch display — not providing the ability to seamlessly multi-task is likely to prove a serious short-coming.

The other missing feature — which most interested us here at LinkMe Mobile — was a camera. Notwithstanding the impracticalities of using a device of this size to take pictures, given its obvious video and image superiority, the lack of a camera was a surprise. We would love to see Apple add a camera feature, and would especially love to build our technology into the device. Given the aggressive thrust into the print world, having the ability to interface directly between printed medium and the virtual iBook store and Newspaper partners would be an obvious — and significantly value-adding — feature.

We’re going to try to convince Apple of the merits of this idea and demonstrate how it could enhance the user experience (and their sales!). We’re also going to keep working with our partners at Barnes & Noble to do exactly the same thing.  If you haven’t seen our Barnes & Noble bookstore app for Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPod touch, download it now.  In the first 6 months since its release, it has already passed the 1 million download mark.  Rave reviews from customers on Apple’s iTunes website continue … “So easy!” … “Fun to use!” …”Recognizes every cd cover I’ve tried!” … “This is so cool. Why don’t all apps have image recognition?”  We strongly agree with this last satisfied customer.

So what’s a dramatic way that Apple’s iPad and Barnes & Noble’s Nook can enhance sales?  Why not add a camera?  Allow users a way to directly interface with — and ultimately purchase and download information — simply by taking a picture of their favorite book, CD or DVD cover — or any product they see in their world.  With higher than a 96% accuracy rate, our image recognition technology is the best on the market — and as holders of the patents in this space, we have the solution.  We’d be happy to discuss adding image and voice recognition to any Apple or Barnes & Noble device.

Well done to Apple for the iPad – they’ve added a beautiful new device into the fascinating — and growing — world “in the middle” between PCs and mobile phones. We look forward to watching their next step.

Image Credit: Apple

These posters were displayed in Clear Channel malls across the U.S. in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Miami.  After a consumer emailed their photo of the ad to the specified address, our technology would recognize the image (with a 96% accuracy rate!) and return a coupon directly to their phone. The message instructed the person to show their new coupon at the fragrance counter of the Macy’s department store in the mall they were in — and they would instantly receive a free deluxe Harajuku Lovers fragrance sample set!  Pretty cool.  The point of the campaign was twofold.  First, to see if consumers would interact with in-mall advertising if it was link-enabled with our technology — and second, could we actually drive retail traffic sales if we offered something really fabulous?? (i.e. free samples!!)  Even we were surprised with the success of the results.

At the end of the campaign, we surveyed the participants.  We discovered that a staggering 25% of mall shoppers who took a photo of the ad and received the mobile coupon made purchases at Macy’s after they got their sample — 7% of people made purchases over $20.00 and 18% made purchases over $40.00. To date, the only other similar campaign of its kind used Bluetooth to deliver mobile coupons to mall shoppers.  The average number of consumers that purchased product after receiving the Bluetooth coupon totaled 7% — ours totaled 25% — big difference!  An additional 7% of the participants in our campaign said they would purchase more Harajuku Lovers perfume — and more products from Macy’s — in the future, but that they wouldn’t have done so if they hadn’t been introduced through “this cool campaign.”  It became obvious from the results of the campaign that people really liked interacting with brands by taking photos with their phone — especially if they would receive great stuff (e.g. coupons, specials or samples) in return.

The ages of people who interacted with the ads were also fascinating – as young as 15 years old and up to 54. In rating their overall experience, consumers told us it was “A Fun Way To Use The Phone!” and “So Simple!” as two of the coolest things about the experience.  64% told us they wanted to be part of more interactive campaigns using their mobile phones – and a whopping 86% said they would recommend LinkMe Mobile campaigns to friends and family.  We could have never dreamed for such fabulous results.

LinkMe Mobile is always on the cutting-edge of new ways to use our patented image and voice recognition technologies.  Keep in touch with us and we’ll let you know where you can find LinkMe Mobile in your world!

If you’re interested, please click here to read the full Case Study about the LinkMe Mobile, Coty, ClearChannel project.

And click here to contact us by email if you’re interested in a similar campaign for your company.  We’d love to hear from you.

Image Credit: Coty & Clear Channel

This info is particularly useful for mobile shopping, and can include everything you’ve ever wanted to know about a product: from photos to price comparisons, mobile coupons, special deals, store locations, amazing campaigns and more — you can even make a purchase right from your phone!  Right now, the best example of LMM’s mobile search technology in action in the United States is Barnes & Noble’s bookstore app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. Get it here.  More than one million people have downloaded the app since its release just a few months ago!  Due to the patents on our technology and our unprecedented 96% image matching rate, it is the most successful bookstore app ever created — check out the rave reviews on Apple’s iTunes website.  We have other amazing apps and campaigns across the globe in Japan, China, Canada and the UK — each of these uses our patented technology.  No other company in mobile search has been around longer — or has the patent portfolio we do — and we’re very proud of it.

To learn more about our patents and exactly how they work, please click here.

If you have any questions about our patents or our technology, please connect with us. We love to hear from partners, users and fans!

Image Credit: U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

We see an increasing number of competitors in this sector — mostly companies attempting to use bar code scanners or some form of QR codes or other odd, unattractive symbols. The problem with every one of these is that no matter how clever the symbol, ultimately they are very ugly and they alter and ruin all the efforts put into brand creativity and advertising. They’re also completely unnecessary. Besides the fact that nearly all of these infringe upon our patents, our technology consistently achieves over 96% accuracy recognizing any naked image – without the need for adulterating symbols or embedded watermarks. Again and again, ours is proven the best choice for both retailers and consumers.   In Japan — where QR codes originated and are ubiquitous — we’re now constantly being approached by people telling us they no longer want to use them and much prefer the flexibility and results we can provide.

All of this has taken us to the point where we felt it time to start reaching out directly to consumers, as more and more of them are downloading our applications and using our technology every day. We’ve therefore added this blog into our site — and integrated Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed and Share This options — to better serve our customers and consumers. We’ll be using these social media outlets to keep the dialogue open and flowing in both directions — most importantly, to ensure we provide the best service we can. We believe every mobile phone should be a Discovery Device ™ and with your help and ideas we’ll continue creating, learning and growing our technology and our apps to answer your needs. I invite everyone to connect with us and let us know what we can do with our technologies to make your life better.

All the best,

dwm

President & CEO

Image Credit: Paul Rumohr