Replace the static with the dynamic on longer shelf-life items
We often produce information in a static way. Anytime we produce a sign, a placard, or almost any other printed material it exists in that form until we print something else. The San Antonio River Walk has twelve points along its route with QR codes that each link to an audio narration, historic photos, and renderings. When you make something like a sign for a path, or a marker, they are often made and then never updated. History however is rarely static. New information comes about all of the time. You could even, in this example, provide seasonal information about those locations. The key here is to be thinking of ways that you can change the backend content and therefore increase efficiency.
Lesson 13: If you are producing material that has a longer shelf life than an ad (be it on a membership card, or even the label on your product), you can't change the QR code, but you can change what the link you use ends up on, says, or communicates. For example, a tag on a dress that, when scanned, texts you back an encouraging phrase of how good you look.
Use what's in your brand's attic
Brands have histories, and with those histories they have content. The goal of the "World Park" campaign from New York's Central Park Tourism was to attract younger, more social visitors. With more than 50 QR codes, Central Park was turned into an interactive board. From walking through exhibits, to standing and seeing concerts that were performed, essentially this campaign time-shifted, like a TiVo, what was in the brand's attic into the present moment.
Lesson 14: Many of you have "brand attics" -- a whole slew of material from years of advertising and marketing. You have legacies of creative work and people interacting with your brands in the real world. That material can be leveraged.
This is one of the most innovative and beautiful integrations of technology and location. The reason it is successful is for the same reason the JCPenney campaign is. Brand attics contain a treasure trove of emotional moments in people's lives. Branding happens when you tap into that emotion, for it is at those exact moments that those emotional experiences get attached to your brand. It is not about the number of exposures or click-thru rates or GRPs -- branding is solely the purview of emotion and our connection of brands to it.
