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.

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

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, www.prpic.com