But the ubiquity doesn’t mean that QR codes are effective.  A recent Twitter exchange with Uwe Hook (@uwehook), co-founder of Bates|Hook, a human business design firm, underscored some of the criticisms about QR codes:

(You can read more about Uwe’s perspective on QR codes on his company’s blog)

While I believe that Uwe brings up excellent points in both his tweets and his blog, I’m a fan of QR codes.  In my own experience, I have seen significant lifts in response and conversions compared to other advertising and marketing channels.

And, I’m not alone.  Tesco, the UK supermarket, had a brilliant QR code campaign in South Korea where users could scan grocery items from a subway billboard ad into their online shopping carts. That campaign generated 10,000 new customers and increased online sales by 130%.  Allure Magazine which first experimented with QR codes for streamlined online contest registration is now using QR codes in their magazine each month to unveil their monthly free giveaways.  And, restaurant chain Applebee’s is socializing their 14 minute menu with table tent QR codes featuring their  TableCat video (and yes, it’s gone viral on YouTube).

These programs were effective because they combined not only marketing basics but also an understanding of how this new technology works.  So, if you are contemplating utilizing QR codes, make sure you:

• Know Your Audience:  Are they smartphone users?  Are they technology forward — i.e, do they use their smartphone for more than just email? Do they view their smartphone as an extension of themselves?  If your brand’s target audience isn’t using the full complement of smartphones features, it’s unlikely that they will understand or be willing to use QR codes.

• Tie campaign to business objectives:  What’s the purpose of the campaign?  Are you driving awareness, consideration or sales/leads?  Entertainment, unless that’s your business objective, doesn’t translate to business success.

• Provide value to the user:  What does the user get after they scan the QR code?  Are they getting a discount, an exclusive or special offer or a streamlined mobile process?  If you’ve made a promise in the advertisement, will the QR user get a payoff?

• Understand the User Context:  What is the user doing when confronted with the QR code? Is it a context that lends itself to QR scanning?  This an area where most marketers fail.  Tesco provided QR codes at a point where South Koreans (who have internet in the subways) had time — anyway from a few minutes to 15 minutes.  Applebee’s took advantage of the downtime of people sitting in their restaurants waiting for their food orders.  Allure Magazine understood that their readers often texted or used social networks while reading their magazines.  In NYC, there is limited internet in the subways.  Most QR codes are useless right now in subways.

• Optimize the experience for a mobile device: Once a user has scanned the QR code, they need an experience that is optimized for a mobile device.  Don’t send them to a flash site that they can’t access or a long online registration form.

• Measure beyond scans: Total number of scans is not sufficient to measure success. You need a robust measurement plan tied to your business objectives to evaluate the effectiveness of this channel against others.  How does the QR campaign compare to other channels?  What is the quality of the customer/prospect from QR codes vs other channels?

Without proper planning, you could be guilty of shiny object syndrome.  QR codes require the same marketing discipline as any other marketing campaign in order to be effective.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of marketing resources and audience good will.

Thanks to the emergence of location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and now Facebook Places, millions of users are recording their daily adventures and broadcasting digital breadcrumbs to their social graph. However, the brand value of a check-in on a location-based service is debatable, and its ROI unclear.

Many brands have been trying to find value in experimental promotions, mostly based on frequency of visit. Ben and Jerry’s offered three scoops of ice cream for three bucks (when it’s normally north of five dollars) and a free scoop for the mayor on Foursquare. The Gap offered 25% off of a purchase just for checking in. Best Buy teamed with Gowalla to have users check in for a chance to win a free Eye-Fi card.

These experiments have generated excitement, but they only scratch the surface of what’s possible. Check-ins are not enough — and businesses know that showing up does not equate to profit. A customer might be checking in without purchasing anything, or their purchases might be small, deeply discounted, or one-time due to competitor loyalty. Additionally, user points on most location-based networks are tied to a specific location. For instance, if a customer frequents multiple Starbucks locations, she could still never become a Foursquare Mayor — even though she may be a loyal and profitable customer.

Today, loyalty programs are often siloed and limited to the interactions between two axes: the customer and spending. In the best of these programs, a brand knows exactly what the customer is spending and how frequently. On the other hand, while brands have spending data across their own locations, they lack knowledge of what kind of business the customer is giving competitors.

If location-based services began collecting the size and frequency of purchases across all locations and mining the data of check-ins (including likes and dislikes), they could begin to build the next generation of loyalty rewards programs comprised of customer, spending, location, and sentiment. Such a program would benefit location-based service providers, brands, and customers alike.

Take this example: if every day a consumer purchases a latte from Starbucks and then walks across the street to Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up a turkey sausage flatbread, both companies could benefit from that information. If many customers display similar habits, Starbucks could add a similar breakfast sandwich to their menu or even discontinue their current breakfast fare at that location.

That level of data provides a more holistic view of consumer behavior, and could ultimately help brands become more relevant and timely. In the example above, in addition to knowing consumers’ breakfast sandwich habits, Starbucks could also learn whether individuals go to Starbucks all or most of the time for coffee. The company could then use that market insight to offer coffee-consumers individual promotions to try their food items, instead of promotions for coffee which the consumer already gladly purchases at full price.

Running promotions to sell what certain consumers already buy is a waste of money for the company. But a promotion to shift behavior becomes an incremental win. The consumers win as well — this way, the brands they like can reward them with incentives to meet their needs better.

With a ripe opportunity for brands to use location-based data to power the next generation of loyalty programs, mining the rich data of check-ins will give companies a more holistic view of consumer behavior, which will help cultivate customer loyalty and drive sales. In short, whenfinally taken seriously, location-based services have the potential to become more than just a game — and much more than having bragging rights as mayor of a local haunt.

Last week, scheduling a dinner meeting, I tried to recall the name of a restaurant where I had recently eaten a phenomenal cacio e pepe dish.  I could see the restaurant in my mind and even the approximate location but for the life of me I couldn’t remember its name.  I could have googled it or just described the location to my dinner guest had it not dawned on me: I could just log into my Foursquare account and view my history.  And, voilà there it was: Maialino, at 2 Lexington Avenue.  And, I had one of those “ah ha” moments: realizing the power of a technology for more than it’s originally developed uses.  In this case, geo location services for boomers.

If you don’t know, Foursquare is just one of a number of new mobile social networks e.g., Gowalla, Loopt Star, Where, BriteKite, MyTown, PegShot – that use GPS driven location tagging to allow users to check in, post tips and more importantly share that information with their friends.  Each check-in rewards the user with a badge, passport stamp or points.  Some of the services have signed up with retailers, entertainment companies and manufacturers to offer savings or other rewards for loyal customers.  For instance, on Foursquare, Mayors (that’s the badge a user earns for being the most frequent visitor to a location) to Starbucks locations can receive a $1 off on a frappuccino.  Others offer up retailer coupons or ads upon check in.  Loopt, which was an early entrant in geo location social network, re-launched its platform last month as a virtual loyalty program. Users receive discounts, coupons, and other rewards for checking-in to select locations from major national name brands including Burger King, The Gap and Universal Music Group.  There are also social good focused geo location services such as CauseWorld and Scavnger that allow users to check-in and redeem their points for causes they support.  And, more recently, Yelp and Facebook announced that they too will join the fray with their own location based service.

But, back to my “ah ha” moment.  I’m sure some are wondering why a baby boomer would even bother checking in to locations throughout the day, leaving essentially digital breadcrumbs marking their movements.  Like status updates, why would boomers want to broadcast where they are at any given moment of the day? Not to mention the privacy and safety implications of all these geo location services.

Because these services can be extraordinarily helpful:

• Technology powered digital memory jogger: We are all prone to memory lapses.  How nice to have a recorder of your travels on your phone.  No need to remember the address; the geo location service automatically populates.  If you use the comment section to record a note something you especially enjoyed or despised – a bottle of wine, a helpful sales clerk, etc. – a scan of your check in history can jog your memory.

• Tips from known reviewers:  Unlike review sites like Yelp, I know the people who have left tips at places I check in to.  For instance, two weeks ago, I’ve checked into a new restaurant, only to discover that one of friends has been here before and left a tip of a dish to order. I know that person and the tip was spot on.

• Real time ability to connect in real life with friends and colleagues:  Each of these services offers the ability to see what’s trending at any given moment near your location – as well as where your friends and colleagues have checked in (assuming that they enabled sharing).  On a day-to-day basis, I admit, I almost never use this feature but at conferences, it is invaluable.  And, occasionally, I’ve had the absolute delight of a family member connecting with me spontaneously based on a check in.

• Onsite retail rewards:  While coupon use is on the rise, I’ve never been a serious coupon user.  It’s too much effort.  But the surprise and delight factor of receiving an on-site reward or discount for checking into a location is not only priceless but can also drive product trial and foster loyalty. For instance, after my fifth check in to Starbucks, I earned a barrister badge and a tall latte.

As geo location services become mainstream, it will be important both for developers and advertisers to remember that it’s not just the Millennials who will be checking in; it will also be Boomers.  If you’re in doubt: remember three years ago few believed that Boomers would embrace Facebook.  But they did.

In real estate, the mantra has always been “location, location, location” to underscore the value of being in the right place.  Now, with the advent of geo-location social networks like FourSquare, GoWalla, Hot Potato and CauseWorld that mantra extends to the digitally connected world.  Only now, the physical location takes a back seat to the sharing of physically being at the location.  And, that sharing of location check-ins is valuable for both the providers of these services and marketers.  Which is why Twitter began enabling geo-tagging tweets this past March and why Facebook announced earlier this month it would soon enter the geo-location fray.

For brands with a physical presence, there is an opportunity to drive trial and loyalty as these companies are trying:

• MTV Networks and Starbucks have partnered with FourSquare to offer frequent check-in users’ special offers and badges.
• Citi, Kraft, P&G and Sears have partnered with CauseWorld to offer karma points for social good redemption opportunities.
• The Gap, Burger King, Universal Records and Starbucks have joined LooptStar’s virtual loyalty program.

They can also, if these programs reach scale, gain insights on who comes to their physical locations.  For most bricks and mortar businesses — particularly if they do not have a loyalty program — it is difficult to know who their customers are.  And, this problem is even more acute if the business has multiple locations.  Location based services, though, can solve this information gap by offering businesses data on who checks-in and aggregating across retail locations. So, now, for instance, Starbucks will know that there are four locations — one in NJ and one in NY — that I routinely frequent.  And, they’ll also see when I go out of the tri-state area, that I’m likely to stop in a Starbucks location for my daily caffeine fix.  Information that they would not know since I don’t belong to their loyalty program, I don’t use their pre-paid cards and I don’t charge my transactions.

But, despite the proliferation of programs and offers, these programs still lack two important ingredients of a compelling rewards program:  aspiration and meritocracy.

Aspiration

Give us something we secretly lust to drive us to try your location — and keep coming back.  For instance, Nieman Marcus’ InCircle rewards has offered over its 20 plus years aspirational rewards like private trapeze lessons, a custom maserti or a year’s worth of cooking class at the Viking Cooking School.  American Express’ Membership Rewards has aspirational rewards like private golfing lessons or fabulous vacations.  It’s these aspirational rewards that airlines hooked into years ago when they created their own loyalty programs.  These rewards require effort (spending) on the part of the programs’ members.  And, more importantly, they drive bottom line results for the businesses.  This is not to say that location based services should replace their current promotions with aspirational promotions.  Rather, they need both.  Aspiration to acquire; mundane to keep engaged. Without the aspirational component, these programs are little more than mobile, multi-retailer grocery reward programs:  pedestrian and not compelling.

Meritocracy

The other shortcoming of these programs — and this is particularly the case for Foursquare — is that there is no “meritocracy.”  Meaning, these services reward just the “mayor.”   While from a business point of view, it minimizes the financial risk (less that needs to be paid out), it also de-incentivizes anyone who checks in regularly but is not the “mayor.”  So, if I can check in every day to a Starbucks — but it’s not the same one — am I a less valuable customer to Starbucks than the person who checks in to only one Starbucks’ location? Probably not.  Yet the promotions aren’t structured to reward both types of brand loyalist.  (In fact, you could argue that the person who goes to multiple locations is truly the brand loyalist)

So, if you’re thinking about experimenting in location based services for your business, remember to create a program that is both aspirational and merit-based.

I quit the survey.  I am interested in learning about best practices for corporate/non-profit partnerships.  But, this survey didn’t address that question. It wasn’t designed to gain insights and inform companies or non-profits on best practices as its introduction suggested.  There were no questions about effective strategies/practices used by corporations and non-profits in cause marketing campaigns;  no sense of how effective these partnerships are or could be; no lessons learned from these partnerships; or even whether the respondent was from a company or a non-profit.  That kind of survey would have been meaningful and would have uncovered the necessary information to report on best practices.

Instead, this survey was essentially a poll to gauge the temperature of its respondents on several cause marketing issues.

I’m not opposed to polls.  In fact, I find them very useful to take a temperature.  And, when well designed, can also provide great insight.  For instance, this morning on Twitter, I learned of this poll on geolocation services:

But, sadly, the survey on cause marketing best practices won’t even be able to provide this level of insight because too many questions were worded with “yes,” “no” and “maybe” responses.  And, more fundamentally, the survey design did not align with the stated survey goals — improving cause marketing efforts and informing companies on cause marketing best practices.

With the proliferation of DIY survey sites like Survey Monkey, Zoomerang and Survey Gizmo and social networks, anyone can write a survey and send it globally.  But, before doing so, it’s helpful to design for insight and decisioning.  Specifically:

• Be clear on your objective.  In other words, what is the purpose of the survey? What is the business problem or question you are trying to answer?  And, what will you do with the results?
• Collect information that meets your objective. That is, what information do you need to answer the business question? For instance, if you want to establish an understanding of best practices, you need to collect information on best practices — e.g., what are people doing, why does it works, who is doing it, etc.  This is information forms the backbone of your survey and your analysis.  It will be the building blocks of the story when the data comes back.
• Align your questions with your research objective and information needs.  If the survey question doesn’t add to your understanding of the business question, don’t ask it.  And, ask the right kind of question.  Think about when you meet a new person and you want to draw them out.  If you only ask  ”yes” or “no” questions, you won’t learn that much about a person. It’s the same for surveys.
• Survey the right people. Sample design is an area that many people ignore.  They think they can get a response from anyone.  If you want to know what any one thinks about a topic, you can certainly ask any one.  On the other hand, if you are trying to make a business decision that impacts only a segment of the total population, your survey should interview that segment.  That means, you’ll need a screener to identify that you have the right survey respondent.  Not all of these DIY survey tools allow you to screen so its a good idea to check.  If you are in doubt about the value of surveying the right respondents, just look at political polls.  Some polls — particularly from news organizations, ask anyone who is 18 years or older; others ask if the respondent is registered to vote; the best at predicting election outcome are the ones that survey likely voters.

Of course, there are many other best practices for an effective survey.  These four elements — objective, information requirements, question design and sample — though are the most critical.  Otherwise, as an early research mentor told me:  ”garbage in; garbage out.”

And, you?  What advice would you provide?

During the years that personal-data systems were making their rapid technical progress, many people started entering small reports about their lives into a phone.  Sharing became the term for the quick post to a social network: a status update to Facebook, a reading list on Goodreads, a location on Dopplr, Web tags to Delicious, songs to Last.fm, your breakfast menu on Twitter.

And, why do these individuals track their daily habits? They’re seeking answers:

Self trackers believe their numbers hold secrets that they can’t afford to ignore, including answers to questions they have not yet thought to ask.

As a marketer, I’m intrigued by the data that people record and share.  In my own social networks, friends, family members and colleagues have shared all sorts of data — from interesting (and valuable to me) news links to inane, highly personal drivel.  And, to be fair, I am just as guilty of the personal drivel.  Yet, I also know it’s in the aggregation and analysis of that personal information that insights about people’s behaviors, desires, and wants reside.  Insights that lead to “ah ha” moments that drive product development, design target identification, and branding and marketing campaign creation.

Which brings me back to all this data collection.  Data, on its own, doesn’t create insight.  In order to gain those insights, you need to know how to frame the question, look at the right variables and see the trends, the correlations and the context.  In short, you need data literacy.  Which is exactly what fellow Wired writer Clive Thompson wrote in this month’s Wired Magazine Do You Speak Statistics:

We live in a world where the thorniest policy issues increasingly boil down to arguments over what the data mean.  If you don’t understand statistics, you don’t know what’s going on — and you can’t tell when you’re being lied to.  Statistics should now be a core part of general education…our inability to grasp statistics — and the mother of it all, probability — makes us believe stupid things….We often say, rightly, that literacy is crucial to public life: If you can’t write, you can’t think. The same is now true in math. Statistics is the new grammar.

While Thompson was writing about the general public, he could have been writing about marketers; they too need statistical fluency.  They need to be able to properly frame the question, collect the right data, and analyze it looking for context, correlations and historical trends.  It’s not a fluency that all marketers have — or aspire to master. Yet, it is so crucial for smart business decisions.

Ironically, it seems that through trial and error, the self-trackers Wolf profiled are becoming data literate.  They look for trends. They refine and reframe their questions. They share their data and make adjustments based on feedback.   And, in doing so, they are gaining invaluable insight into their habits.

So, are you data literate?

The campaign is a mix of brand and cause marketing: it is reinforcing through its proscribed tweet script its trade campaign while simultaneously attempting to tap into American’s desire to “do good.”

And, therein lies the rub:  this is a brand campaign masquerading as a cause initiative.  The proscribed tweet focuses on advertising in USA Today, not on making a difference. There is no opportunity to learn about any organization or the issue they are working to address; there is no call to action, and, most importantly, there is no real “give” from USA Today at the end that will truly help an organization.  Consider:

• Effective newspaper advertising requires frequency.  Some argue that 3.1 impressions is sufficient; others that it takes at least twice that.  A one day run doesn’t come anywhere near the frequency required to raise awareness or establish recognition.
• An average newspaper reader scans the paper a few times a week; not every day.  Again, a one day run at best will garner half of the readership (circulation numbers are how many papers are produced not eye-balled).
• Response rates to newspaper advertisements are exceedingly low; perhaps that’s why ad revenues are down 27% this year — the lowest since 1986 when more people actually read and subscribed to newspapers.

Yet, sadly, many organizations are scrambling to rally the troops to participate in this contest.

But there is an opportunity cost in over contacting a supporter base.  Eventually, you burn your supporters out.  They stop responding and may even stop contributing.  This is no different than what happens in corporate America when companies over contact their customer base: first, they stop responding, then they ask to be put on opt-out lists or attrite.  So, charity organizations should ask themselves when these contests are announced, “what’s in it for me?”  And, if there isn’t a substantial return on involvement, they should skip the contest.

This is something that the Red Cross clearly understands.  Wendy Harman, the organization’s social media director sent out this tweet last night:

My advice to her?  No, Wendy, you’re not dumb.  Quite the contrary.

I have been a huge fan of Jesse Thomas since first seeing his work on the conversation prism last year.  A creative designer, he has a knack for visually representing data — and in doing so, telling a compelling story.

This video, which he posted on Vimeo last week, tells the tale of our very networked, digital lives — how it started, how far it reaches and how rapidly it has grown.  While some of the data is now slightly dated — e.g., Facebook now has over 400 million users — the story remains the same.  The internet has enabled us to connect globally and quickly.  And, that range and speed change forever how marketers ply their craft.  Are you ready?

“We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we’ve been working around the clock to address the concerns you’ve raised. Today, we wanted to let you know about a number of changes we’ll be making over the next few days based on all the feedback we’ve received…. We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We’ll continue to do so.”

Watching these events unfold — and playing with Buzz a little over the past week — it struck me as ironic that the company known and revered both for its analytical superpowers and its “don’t be evil” credo, failed on both accounts. And, in doing so, jeopardized its stellar brand.

Analytical Power Failure

Let’s face it:  we’ve all been smitten by Google’s algorithms that deliver lightening fast, relevant searches.  And, it’s able to do so because it collects a ridiculous amount data: it knows what sites you visit, when and how frequently, what ads you click on, what products you buy and so on.  It gathers up all those bits and bytes, crunches them, and synthesizes them  into a coherent story. If you use it’s products — Gmail, Gchat, Chrome, search, Voice, etc. — it knows even more.  (You can, by the way, see what they know about you by logging onto the Google Dashboard)

Google leveraged some of that data to create its automated circle of friends for new Buzz users that raised the hackles of privacy advocates.  But, interestingly, it only scratched the surface of its knowledge.  It didn’t appear to leverage data that would have told them, for instance, that the people I most frequently email don’t participate in social networks (hence, the email).  Or, that I typically opt-out of email subscriptions, often using the “unsubscribe” links contained in my emails.  Or, that I don’t allow social networks to go through my Gmail contacts to find friends.  Data that could have created a much more customized — and safer — environment for me and thousands of other Buzz users.

Beyond its own data, Google modelers could have also leveraged market research that would have made Buzz a better product at the start.  Data, for instance, that women are more privacy sensitive than men; that they equate privacy with safety.  It’s why they want control over whom they connect with online.  Or data that shows consumers segment their real life connections into different social networks, protecting their personal lives from professional scrutiny.

“Don’t be Evil” Failure

Google advises its employees in its code of conduct preface:

‘Don’t be evil.’  Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But ‘Don’t be evil’ is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally — following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.

The code then outlines in detail what it means to not be evil.  In its list it specifically singles out protecting users’ privacy and preserving their trust.  And yet, the team that developed and tested Buzz seems to have forgotten this code.  While using the data to provide a customized experience was not necessarily in violation of their code, forcing it on to a user, without the ability to opt in and displaying their personal information publicly most certainly was.

Redemption

But, despite these initial falterings, Google’s response to the crisis is truer to its brand than its initial product launch.  And, that response — rapid and authentic – appears to be redeeming its brand.  Mashable and Huffington Post seem to be madly love in with it, calling Buzz a game changer and adding Buzz buttons to their stories.  It is as if the Google team took a page from Johnson & Johnson’s 1982 Tylenol tampering crisis.  Then, as now, a major, well respected brand survived a crisis by being true to its brand.

Faced with a similar crisis, what would your brand have done?