Posted under South Metro Business News on Thursday 7 October 2010 at 2:45 pm

Local print shop offers 2D bar codes that allow businesses to augment advertising with multimedia, efficacy tracking

by Aaron Vehling
Dakota County Tribune

Print shops in the digital age: The idea is a delicate tension among tradition, adaptation and obsolescence.

To be in the business of paper during the era of digital ubiquity may seem a shaky endeavor, but Doug Pennington, owner of Lakeville-based Goldmine Dezine, thinks he has found a way to abolish that anachronism: bar codes.

Wait, bar codes?

“Bar codes are boring,” Pennington said one afternoon with a solid laugh. “Who wants to know about bar codes? It’s what they can do for you.”

The types of bar codes Pennington talks about are “2D” and allow your camera-enabled smart phone to scan them top to bottom, in addition to the side-by-side reading your traditional UPC receives.

Let’s say a realtor sends out a postcard showcasing a house for sale. The URL is on the card, but who’s to say the recipients will take the time to check it out?

But what if on that postcard sits the square, 2D bar code replete with dots and squiggly lines? The recipient can pass her cell phone’s camera in front of it and reveal a digital, interactive tour of said house: She could see the intricacies of the property and browse a map poised to guide her to the real estate.

Or maybe you are waiting in line at the movie theater, uncertain of which movie to see. You scan the bar code on the movie poster and instantly that movie’s trailer begins to play on your phone. In a matter of seconds you can determine whether you want to check out the latest Affleck  flick or spend a few hours with Gordon Gekko.
One foot in
the future

It sounds a bit space age, perhaps even a stretch: Who is going to use this technology? Will Pennington’s clients actually request this technology, and will their customers actually take the time to scan a bar code?

But if there is one thing the 30-year printing veteran prides himself on, it is his prescience.

“If you stay ahead of technology, you’ll do fine,” he said. “But lag behind too far and you’ll get lost in the dust.”

He could be right, too. Global smart phone sales were up 14 percent in the second quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, a Connecticut-based information technology research and advisory group. This amounts to about 326 million units sold worldwide, with the United States comprising a major share of that number.

To top it off, Pennington said, his clients want the new technology.

“When I show it to people, nine times out of 10 they want the technology,” he said.   The reason for this is fairly simple: efficacy.

Take, for example, a target-marketing mail piece, which Pennington said is Goldmine’s primary revenue driver. He pointed  to a mailer for one of his clients, a high-end salon in Florida (a majority of Pennington’s business is national). It is targeted at women who earn $75,000 a year or more.

Recipients of those mailers can scan the bar codes to access digital coupons and directions to the business. This serves the customer well, but behind all that is a system in place that allows Goldmine’s clients to determine how effective the mail campaigns actually are.
Retail and more

In 1994, a subsidiary of Toyota invented the 2D bar code Pennington uses, according to the company’s website. Called a QR (or Quick Response) code in Japan, it has reached near-universal recognition there. In some urban areas, there are giant 2D bar code billboards. Only people who scan them can see what the advertisement actually is.

Pennington said the technology has picked up here the past three years as smart phones have become more popular.

The bar code’s application possibilities are “endless,” he said.

Best Buy and Sears are among the retailers that use  bar codes to allow customers to access on-the-spot product reviews and other information in their stores.

Another use is for “anything that requires an assembly manual,” Pennington said. He pointed to a product whose packaging allows you to scan a bar code that will load a video showcasing how to assemble the unit.
Software

To further bolster his mission to remain one step ahead of the game, Pennington not only offers to print the 2D bar codes for his clients. He also sells the software allowing others to print them.

“There is a need for it,” Penning said of selling access to the software by subscription.

Subscribers can log in remotely and “have access to the tools I have,” Pennington said. “They can fill the need of their thousands of customers as if it were me doing it personally.”

Aaron Vehling is at
aaron.vehling@ecm-inc.com.

 

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