14 DAY TRIAL // China Mobile, the world's largest operator, has recorded over 300 million subscribers which means that advertising on mobile phones is starting to become more and more appealing for both mobile operators and advertisers, as the number of cell phone users keeps growing.
But it looks like even though China has the largest mobile phone using population in the world, mobile advertising isn't that developed in the country, with the mobile advertising market being valued at as little as $17 million last year. Now the Chinese seem to have come up with a way to boost mobile advertising and make it more appealing in the eye of the customer.
Through the solution, any physical object can be turned into a hyperlink and the user can click the link (that can be included in something like a leaflet, coffee table or billboard) by taking a snapshot with the phone's camera. The phone will then read a barcode from the advert and open it in a web page.
Advertisers will then be able to build detailed databases and customer profiles, know where someone was when they clicked the add, trace location, the content that was viewed or the mobile phone that was used. According to Sage Brennan from research firm JLM Pacific Epoch, if barcode reading software will be included in every handset in the country, the incentive to insert a tiny code in advertisements will be huge.
Such barcodes were tested for a three-months period by Chinese barcode company Gmedia with Starbucks and were displayed on tabletops in the chain's 50 outlets in Beijing. Users that clicked one were linked to a website that allowed them to get a free coffee.