Museum gets boost from QR Codes

Print 2D's Museum Program helps the Santa Monica Museum of Art promote its annual fund raising event to a mobile audience.
by Beth Silverstein

April 5, 2011 - Los Angeles, CA -- Attendance at Museums and Art Galleries is down. In fact, a report released by the National Endowment for the Arts said that the number of American adults attending arts and cultural events has sunk to its lowest level since 1982 (LA Times Blog Dec 10, 2009). Philip Warbasse is known for award winning QR Code campaigns in the entertainment industry and now his integrated media firm, Print 2D, has developed a mobile strategy to help increase awareness and support for The Santa Monica Museum of Art's annual fund raising event, Incognito, to be held the evening of April 31, 2011. 

The Strategy
The goal of the campaign is to increase attendance at this year's event. Print 2D has created a mobile strategy that works on several levels to do just that. The focus is on "ease of use". The mobile experience points to a video clip at the top of each page of a four page micro-site. The video entitled "How to prepare for Incognito 2011," combined with the About section, provides the user with a quick, yet comprehensive overview of this years event.

The Tickets & Information section provides several ways to order tickets straight from the user's smart phone. Print 2D implemented this strategy because, according to Philip Warbasse, "any time you can successfully pair the offer with a call-to-action, in real time, you increases the probability that the user will engage in the process."

The Sponsors section acknowledges the generous contributions to SMMOA, while lending credibility and a broader identity to the event itself. The Contact & Directions section links to Google Maps, providing a handy tool to help attendees find there way to the event.

Lastly, but most important, are the social gateways for Mobile Facebook and Twitter. Here, every user is silently recruited to help promote the event to people who will pay attention to them - their friends and followers. "Leveraging social mechanisms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter is extremely important because it enables us to reach a much larger audience who is receptive to the offer since it's coming from someone they are acquainted with," said Warbasse.

Getting the right reader to the user's smart phone
Print 2D recognized, early on, that no single QR Code Reader works well on every device. In response, they have created the 2DGO platform which automatically detects the user's smart phone and provides them with options for free readers guaranteed to work well for them. User's simply TEXT 2dgo TO 368674 (DOTORG) to receive a link to 2DGO found at http://2dgo.org. Equipping user's with a reader effectively doubles the reach of a campaign. Now integrated media advertisers can use one call-to-action to cover every phone.

The Code
Print 2D's designers are behind some very recognizable designer QR Codes already, including some of those for Disney and HBO. They continue to challenge the symbology typically associated with bar codes by applying aesthetic components and brand attributes to their codes, creating unique markers as on ramps to the mobile experience.

Measuring the campaign, not the code
Measuring the campaign effectively means tracking user behavior not the code itself. Good mobile campaigns start with good mobile metrics. Create and track platforms only provide the number of scans and the time of scan, when it's the user experience that needs to be considered. Most create and track platforms do not host or track mobile sites. One only sees who comes through the code.

Print 2D offers full mobile metrics to let you know all kinds of things about the user experience like how long the user stayed, what they looked at, if they shared with friends, and, if those friends came by. "A QR Code is like the front door to a store," said Warbasse. "When someone scans the code, they are effectively walking through the door. It's not enough to know someone stopped by. You want to know what they looked at, how long they were interested, if they actually took action, et cetera. Using mobile metrics to measure the entire user experience and see where it might be going wrong, enables advertisers to change the message or treatment of the campaign while it's live, not as an afterthought."

Print 2D declares the month of April - Museum & Art Gallery Month
During the month of April, Print 2D will create a designer QR code and mobile contact page for Museums and Art Galleries - free. This offer includes 6 months of mobile hosting and full access to user statistics. Some restrictions apply, please consult Print 2D at (424) 229-1404 for more information.

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