Magazines use of mobile action codes — QR codes, Microsoft Tags, SnapTags, and digital watermarks — may launch a video, promote a contest, offer a coupon or deliver an interactive shopping experience on a mobile phone. But don’t think QR codes need to be restricted to just the magazines you read. Take QR codes to your everyday products. Contact Us today to find out more about how YOU can incorporate a QR code into your current image branding.

What the Study Evaluated

The Nellymoser study is limited to national titles readily available on newsstands. To compile the data, Nellymoser counted and analyzed every page in these magazines.

The study analyzed 38,719 pages in Q1, including 15,691 advertising pages. Every mobile action code was scanned with an iPhone or Android phone. Nellymoser activated every campaign, ran every video, and visited every web page.

Key Findings

• Every magazine title, except for one, contained at least one mobile action code during the period.

• More than 450 brands ran at least one advertisement during Q1 2012 that included a code.

• in Q1 2012, 1,365 codes were printed versus 352 during the same period last year.

• The percentage of advertising pages with an action code may provide the most accurate measurement of mobile action code adoption. For the first time, the percentage of magazine pages containing an action code exceeded 8% each month in Q1 2012.

• QR codes clearly dominated the market with more than 80% of all codes in the Top 100 magazines during Q1, up from 72% in Q4. This is a significant change from Q1  2011 when the market was closely split between QR codes and Microsoft Tags.

• All other codes combined had less than 10% share.

• More than 85% of action codes are placed on the bottom half of the page, the traditional location for a call to action.

• Nearly two-thirds (64%) of all action codes were accompanied by information that described what happens after the scan. This is considered by many to be a best practice and follows the pattern of many other calls to action.

• About 45% of all action codes used in magazines (619) came from companies in just four industries: beauty, health, home and fashion. These were the same top industries as during Q4 2011.

Source:  Nellymoser, QR Codes In Magazine Advertising & R.I.T. ‘Print-In-The-Mix’ 99% of Top U.S. Magazines

Approximately 1,800 consumers in Germany and the United States participated in the study, which employed marketing mailings form a fictitious travel agency. The direct mailings tested: standard envelope, printed envelope, self-mailer, wrapper, and email. Using these various marketing vehicles, the effectiveness of a personalized vacation offer was tested amongst two groups of recipients—interested and not interested.

The results confirm the unique advertising effects of the envelope — that an envelope reinforces marketing efforts and messaging, that personalization is an effective technique to get the envelope opened, and that consumers value physical mail, even in this digital era.
Select findings:

• Printed envelopes — manufactured custom to marketers’ specifications — were opened and their contents read by 84.5% of recipients, making them the most opened advertising tested. Standard envelopes were opened and read by 75.6% of respondents, self-mailers 71.4%, and wrappers read and opened by 71.2%. Email had an 80% open rate, making it second to the physical envelope in open rate.

• The Nielsen study demonstrates that “a high-value direct mailing in a creatively designed and printed envelope alone is still not enough to guarantee the success of a direct marketing campaign.” Personalization of the envelope proved key: Recipients who received non-personalized marketing mailings were three times more likely to throw the mail in the trash or delete it, compared to recipients who received an individualized mailing. In addition, individually tailored messages played a key role in the consumer purchase decision funnel — 44% of interested recipients of an individualized direct mailing said they would investigate the travel offer further online, compared to the 36.6% of recipients of non-individualized mailings.

• Recommendations have proven to be the most important factors of influence when making a purchase decision. According to the survey, in general, marketing messages mailed via a personalized printed envelope are more apt to be passed along to friends and family — in fact, twice as often as emails (14.2% v. 7.8%). The testing of the fictitious travel offer proved this true: 13.1% of the interested recipients said that they would pass on content they read in the individualized offers to friends and family —while just 9.1% who received generic offerings said they would do the same.

• Interestingly, older respondents (55–65 years) valued an email advertisement more than the younger target group (16–34 years). Nielsen states that 63.2% of 16–34 year olds see emails “disappearing in the flood of advertisements they receive,” and thus the individually addressed printed envelope is valued very highly by the younger target group. Younger target groups want the best of both worlds: a real envelope and the flexibility of individualized emails.

Source: PIWorld, Nielsen Study Proves the Impact and Attraction of the Printed Envelope, April 20 2012 and First Impressions Determine Direct Marketing Success, April 27, 2012.

Since 1997 we have believed that a personal touch is an integral part in providing you with the best customer service. Now with endless possibilities to create your first impression, PromoInfinity makes it easy to promote your brand with the assurance of Millennium Printing being by your side from start to finish. If you are having trouble deciding whats right for you just give us a call at 781.337.0002 and one of our friendly representatives will be glad to assist you.

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Body type: Type used for the main body of the page; usually measuring between 8 and 14 points.

Dingbats: a font consisting of symbols and line art images.

Display font: Type 16 points or larger in size. Also called headline type.

Ellipsis: also known an elliptical periods, indicate the omission of text or an interruption or hesitation. The classic ellipsis is four spaces separated by three periods. The space at the beginning or end provides spacing between the ellipsis character and preceding or following text, including punctuation.

Em: Originally, a space equal to the size of a 12-point capital letter M. Now, the square of the body of any size type (10 points wide for 10 point type). Also a measure of type height on the web.

En: Half the width of an em space.

Helvetica: the name of a font that is a registered trademark of Linotype-Hell AG; derived from the Latin name for Switzerland.

Kerning: To adjust the spacing between individual pairs of letters. See also: tracking

Leading (pronounced led’-ing): The space between rows of type. Also called line spacing. Originally, thin strips of lead were inserted between lines of type to add space and make the type easier to read – hence the term leading.

Monospaced font: a font whose characters are all the same width or pitch (the number of characters in an inch. Common pitch values are 10 and 12.) Contrasted to proportionally spaced fonts whose character widths vary depending on the shape of the character.

Pica: A measure of type size. One pica equals one-sixth of an inch.

Point: A unit of measure. Twelve points equals one pica. Pica was once the name given to 12-point type, and a 12-point capital letter M was exactly square.

Tracking: To adjust letter spacing for an entire range of text (such as a headline or paragraph). See also: kerning

A brief history of typography
Typography today is the result of Johann Gutenberg’s use of movable type in the mid-1400s. He was the first European to use individual letters, numbers and spaces to assemble into words, sentences and pages that could be disassembled and used again. Movable type, combined with Gutenberg’s invention of oil-based ink and modification of agricultural presses for printing, became the basis for printing for centuries.

The process of manufacturing movable type in metal was continually improved and eventually fostered a true art form – the creation of alphabets, numerals and characters in a single size, weight and style (called a font) with distinctive characteristics, artistically rendered and mathematically balanced. Movable type progressed from crafting fonts individually to cutting matrices and casting the fonts with hot metal to compositing machines with molten lead vats that created whole lines of type on-the-fly (hot type). Eventually typecasting yielded to computerization – first as phototypesetting and later as desktop publishing.

Typography basics
As with many things, today’s designer who understands the basics of typography will find it easier to make decisions about how best to arrange type on both the printed page and a web page. Let’s begin with the definition of a font. Although font and typeface are used interchangeably, the actual definition of a font is an alphabet (defined as upper and lower case letters, numerals, punctuation marks and symbols) in a single size, weight and style. A typeface is a family of fonts representing various sizes, weights and styles.
• Font size is the height of the alphabet and is measured in points (print) or ems (web).
• Font weight such as medium, bold, light or black, is the thickness of the alphabet relative to its hight.
• Font style is the slant of the letters. Upright letters are known as roman; slanted is called italics or oblique.

Finally, create a sense of urgency so the prospect will act now rather than waiting. Here is where a QR code, especially one leading to instant gratification such as a redeemable coupon, has great advantage. It is quick and easy, taking just a few minutes of the prospect’s time. If properly constructed, the prospect may find it easier to respond immediately and move on rather than setting the offer aside for action later.

When designing the post card, consider what the viewer will see first. This is usually the side of the post card with the address, so design this carefully. Your goal is to immediately attract attention and stimulate interest – the first two steps of AIDA (attention, interest, desire and action). Use a bold visual element – a photograph that bleeds off the top and sides of the post card, combined with a provocative headline – at the top of the post card. The address panel can be placed along the bottom part of the post card. It does not have to be positioned on the right half of the card.

Use the side with the address to create enough interest to cause the reader to turn the post card over, where he will find the QR code or PURL. You can include the desire and action steps on this side of the post card, or only hint at them, leaving the reader to find additional information via the web link where there is more room to be persuasive and more opportunity to use text, photos, videos and other tools.

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QR codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone’s browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. If you are interested in a QR code for your own use, contact Millennium Printing and we will help.