Mobile Marketing

Home Depot partnered with Scanbuy, Inc. to launch an in-store service and ad campaign in which shoppers use their smartphones to scan quick response (QR) codes located on shelves, signage and advertisements.

Republic, a men’s and women’s multibranded fashion retailer, announced the launch of a mobile-optimized website that creates a rich and unique shopping experience for consumers whether they're at home, on the go or in a Republic store.

In what may be a first in retail IT, the more-than-5,000-store Tesco chain chose the mobile platform it would experiment with based on a determination that it's the least secure. The trial is about a Wi-Fi system in each store that should map for customers the closest route between selected products. But the reason the chain opted to trial this system on Android is deliciously counter-intuitive.

Carnaby, one of London's leading shopping destinations for fashion and lifestyle, has noticed a positive spike in visits to its website since releasing the new color branded QR Code. The hit rate to carnaby.co.uk increased by 258 percent when launched at the beginning of May 2011.

Junior retailer Mandee is using mobile barcodes to engage consumers and have them participate in its ongoing campaign. The company partnered with junior denim brand Vanilla Star Jeans for the mobile initiative. Both companies are rolling out a design challenge for students at New York City’s High School of Fashion Industries.

The growth of the web over the last decade-and-a-half has been a mixed blessing for brick-and-mortar retailers. While it's created a vast array of new customer touchpoints, it's also introduced the pernicious problem of maintaining those touchpoints across channels.

Mia Sara, a Manhattan transplant in Los Angeles, misses window shopping in New York, but has found a replacement — shopping on her iPad.

Target is raising awareness for its new fresh food offerings by running mobile banner and audio ads across Pandora's platforms. Pandora offers popular mobile applications, with the audience skewing toward younger consumers. Target's mobile ad is targeting Pandora users who are not regular Target shoppers to try to encourage them to buy its new fresh food offerings.

With cafes on nearly every corner in Vancouver, British Columbia, Ethical Bean Coffee Co. needed a way to stand out. The answer was an odd barcode with a maze of black boxes instead of the usual straight lines.

A new study from comScore found that 16.7 million U.S. mobile subscribers used location-based check-in services on their phones in March 2011, representing 7.1 percent of the mobile population.