I’ve been mulling over how NFC could be a catalyst for cross-over, higher-budget and higher-profile, QR-2D applications in advertising and marketing, which in turn will drive greater user adoption as part of defining a new mobile “lifestyle.”
While “payments” may be the primary application with early NFC use, the range of it’s applications span a fair bit of territory where QR-2D currently resides. From what I see, QR-2D is not delivering high-value campaigns that also serve to define QR-2D as being an essential part of a User’s mobile lifestyle – they seem stuck on delivering “information.”
There’s a big difference between saying “I’ll get you information when you need it,” and “I’m going to make your life more interesting.”
Looking at the video promotions for NFC here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/10/nfc_videos/
NFC is being promoted as becoming part of everyone’s daily life — and, improving it – OK, the Nokia clip is pretty cheesy, but the message is clear. They’re selling a good story.
This Barclaycard NFC spot is extraordinary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWp3pxatDyU&feature=player_embedded
As more money goes into NFC-based campaigns, someone is going to recognize that in many cases they should be complemented by QR-2D access as well.
I’m certain that NFC is both complementary to QR-2D in many applications as well as being a facilitator of defining how these related technologies are part of a new mobile lifestyle “story.”
We all know that we can launch more QR-2D campaigns today than NFC, simply due to market penetration. That will level out over the next year. The issue is how, or whether, QR-2D will leverage itself to be part of the larger mobile lifestyle story that’s being told?
As a “mobile content company,” we see that using both technologies together will make sense in many cases; but the public perception of QR-2D needs to become part of the same story that NFC campaigns’ are promoting in order to legitimate media buys that result in high scan rates.
/adapted from LinkedIN post



