Japan Moves URLs To Search – Where Are The QR Codes?

Cabel Sasser recently came back from Japan and has provided a look into what is the latest Web marketing subway billboard craze: search terms. I’ve embedded one example at the bottom of this article. This type of search term marketing is something I’ve written about before with regards to Yahoo and it branded search results was one of my suggestions for Google. It’s an excellent way for a brand to tie into a search engine past the typical text ad or ad banner purchase. For the time being it would eliminate ad blindness on search engines.

My guess is that recall from the subways ads is minimal at best. There are so many adverts within a short trip that remembering not only which search engine to use, but also what the correct term is to enter is a bit much for the average person.

Enter the QR code. We’ve written about these new barcodes (shown above) several times before. While I don’t know if the specific QR technology is the best one, the ability to snap a picture or scan a code for more information is a much stronger message than any advertisement that pushes to a search engine. It’s immediate, there’s no recall and if setup correctly the scanned code could send information back to your desktop or laptop for a rich experience. It also helps the marketer keep a brand top of mind — hit them on the subway, and get them involved at home or at the office. It’s the future.