The Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area needed a new identity, marketing strategy and materials. GF worked with them for two campaigns to launch the identity and establish recognition. The result? A record-breaking total of over $132 million in pledges.

National Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning asked GF to create the identity for a national initiative that would educate people about the link between unhealthy housing and children’s health. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Centers for Disease Control and other major Federal agencies have partnered with the Coalition to provide an integrated approach to this important issue.

Nativity Miguel Network of Schools asked GF to develop new marketing materials that would help them open doors to education for underserved students across the country and make clear this organization’s leading role in the field.

I decided to scan every QR code I could find for one week and answer the “why” question for myself. Here are three lessons I learned in my unofficial research.

1.  Some QR codes substitute for home page URLs
Many of the codes just took me to a main landing page for the company web site. Several of the sites were difficult to view on an iPhone. A magazine ad (yes, I had time to read a good old-fashioned magazine!) for Arkansas tourism used this approach. Remember, QR codes will be scanned by mobile devices. That means wherever you take users, they will be viewing the information on the go. If you direct them to a web site that isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, you’re wasting your time. Even worse, you’re wasting the time of a potential customer or supporter.

Lesson learned: If you include a QR code in your marketing, use it to provide something of unique value, and make sure that the destination is mobile-friendly.

2.  QR codes can carry branding or act as design elements, but be careful
My reader wouldn’t recognize one code that I found on a sports bar coaster. Was it my reader? Was it because the code was white with a dark background? Figuring out an answer was a hassle, so I didn’t bother to find out where the QR code would take me.

Lesson learned: You can do a lot to customize a QR code with branding, etc., but test to make sure it will still be scannable by standard readers.

3.  QR codes still have to prove their value
Some experts say that QR codes are overrated gizmos. If we use them as just another way to bring users to our home pages, then I predict that they will lose their appeal quickly. Plopping a QR code on a sign or ad isn’t enough. The strategy must be to provide people with quick access to special information that helps them make decisions, connect with real-time news or dig deep into what you offer.

At the California Amgen Tour, the Radio Shack team did just that. On their promotional t-shirts, the big QR code took me to a Twitter feed of the race and helped me follow Team RadioShack during the leg of the race that was in progress. I felt like an insider, a member of the “tribe.”  And I knew what I was going to get before I ever scanned the code, because that information was built into the t-shirt design. Now that’s a smart QR code strategy.

Lesson: Like all good marketing tools, QR codes are only as good as the strategy that drives them.

In the next 18 months, more people will be getting their information through mobile devices than desktop or laptop computers. QR codes can be a useful part of your overall marketing strategy to respond to this reality. Use them well!

Arrows

This morning on my usual bike route, I started to notice arrows everywhere. This humble symbol has a lot to do with design. From hand-drawn pointers to iconic logos, arrows direct us to safety, to information, to services and other stuff of life. As I rode on, even the trees started pointing to me!

Designers are symbol people. They create the arrows and letters and icons that communicate simple ideas or launch movements. Today, hats off to John Baskerville, Claude Garamond, Eric Gill, Herman Zapf and all the type designers who have given shape and form to the words and symbols of our lives.

Thank you, Freeport Regional Water Authority

For Monday, kuddos go to local government in California. (Bet that doesn’t happen often these days!) I live near the Sacramento River where two regional water authorities worked together to build an intake plant that draws water from the river and distributes it to key areas throughout the region.

The facility sits at the end of a walking/biking path. It could have been a bleak, industrial end to a beautiful hike in California’s Central Valley. Instead, the design is a well-integrated, graceful building that graphically celebrates the river and the life it brings to the land.

The project was many years in the making, but it has been worth the wait. Thanks to design, this levee landmark offers a serene welcome to my neighbors as well as thousands of travelers heading toward the city along the nearby freeway.

It’s that time again. Next week is National Design Week. We’re all over this chance to revel in all things creative. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York established this commemoration in 2006 to draw attention to all the ways design influences our daily lives.

With the passing of Steve Jobs last week, I hope that his impact receives a proper spotlight. I’m sitting in my office surrounded by his design. I spend many hours a day hands-on with his beautiful and functional products.

The American Institute of Graphic Arts’ Washington DC chapter is hosting a great selection of events to honor the week. Even if you are far from the professional world of design, I’m issuing a challenge to you. Each day next week, take a moment to appreciate some aspect of design that makes a difference for the better in the way life works. It won’t be hard to find examples.

Let me know what you find, and I’ll do the same.

By 2013, more people will access the Internet from mobile phones and tablets than a desktop computer. Are you making the transition with your web site and marketing?

Here’s a start.

In June, Graves Fowler Creative hosted a virtual open house and round table discussion about the shift to mobile technology. “Best Practices: Choosing a Mobile Strategy that Works for You” grew out of that event.

Download your free copy today >>

I know from personal experience that content disappears on Twitter and Facebook faster than a Heath Bar in my granddaughter’s backpack. We can only expect to have minutes when a post will be visible before it drops down the page and is gone. It’s frustrating and weakens my motivation to keep posting. When I have billable time goals and deadlines to meet, why bother with a tweet that will disappear almost as soon as I send it out?

Beth Kanter did a blog post today about “content decay,” the short time that we have to get attention from our networks for our wise musings and golden words. She cites a recent study from Bit.ly that looks at the half-life of links on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. “Half-life” is the amount of time at which a link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak.) The mean half-life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours and on Facebook it’s 3.2 hours. Even this data is surprisingly high to me.

What’s the takeaway from Bit.ly’s study? Hubspot’s interpretation of this research says that it matters less where you post, but what you post. Quality makes for a longer half-life and helps to slow down content decay. Quality. I hope that’s true!

Facebook continues to hold the King of the Mountain position in social media, and it seems everything they do creates buzz. From security and privacy issues to marketing tactics, they rule.

Although I’ll Like a Facebook page in a flash for a charity I support or a professional association related to the design industry, I’m not an easy sell on Liking a corporate Facebook page. This is especially true now when I’m forced to Like a page in order to access the really good stuff—coupons, exclusive content or a contest entry. And there’s the BZZZ word for this week: “Like-gating.”

My opinion: Like-gating makes me suspect the value of Likes that show up on my home page. It’s yet another form of junk mail, not a trusted referral from one of my friends. Lots of people are finding ways around Like-gating, but that all takes time that I don’t have.

As Rafe Needleman at cnet News commented, “There’s a place for honest Likes. People should be able to Like a product the same way they voluntarily wear a brand T-shirt. But let’s try to avoid turning people into cheap billboards for fake recommendations. It will not end well.”

Couldn’t agree more.