With the launch of this new partnership, Guthy-Renker Japan is introducing unprecedented special promotions to both new and long-time Proactiv customers. Guthy-Renker Japan President Michael Allen explains this groundbreaking campaign and partnership, “Using ShaLink to interact with Proactiv products is fun and easy. The special product promotions we’re offering can only be accessed through use of the ShaLink app – and consumers are connected directly with Proactiv campaign site. Snapping a picture with their cell phone through ShaLink takes them online instantly, so there is no need to speak with an operator to place an order. It couldn’t be easier.”

Tom Garofalo, Executive Vice President of Asia Pacific for LinkMe Mobile explains, “We are very pleased to be working with a consumer products innovator such as Guthy-Renker Japan. Together we offer a fun, interactive mobile phone experience and facilitate the ease of buying Proactiv products. This is the first partnership of its kind anywhere in the world. By combining print, TV and real world consumer touchpoints we allow customers to connect to and purchase products directly through their mobile phones using our image recognition technology – without requiring any kind of symbol or code. This takes mobile commerce to a whole new level.”

Setting the standard for technology innovation, LinkMe Mobile fundamentally changes the way people connect with their world. Through proprietary image and voice technology for mobile phones, consumers can find the information they need at the moment they want it. Equally, Guthy-Renker Japan has always been a leader in innovative marketing concepts for their many brands, often bringing in high profile talent as spokespeople for the Proactiv line. In 2010 these include pop star Avril Lavigne, Japanese singer Yuna Ito, reality tv icon Jessica Simpson, singer Katy Perry and Dancing With the Stars alum Julianne Hough.

Combining cutting edge mobile phone technology from LinkMe Mobile and its ShaLink app, with Guthy-Renker Japan’s successful Proactiv product line, this partnership will deliver an entirely new mobile shopping experience to an unprecedented number of consumers.

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

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, www.prpic.com