QR Code Marketing By HarperCollins

HarperCollins is one of the leading publishers of books and magazines known to mankind….and it does not come as any form of surprise that they’re literally one of the few firsts in the publishing industry to start using QR Codes for marketing and promotion. It’s only a matter of time, really, and the giant publishing house’s got the manpower to pave the way for smaller printing houses.

Saying that the QR Code marketing strategy is viral is an understatement. Lauren Conrad, lovingly referred to as ‘L.C.’ is not only a famous author but a television personality, a celebrity, an actress and occasionally, I suspect, a model as well. We heard that this beautiful lady is rolling out the works for the promotion of her new novel called L.A. Candy. The target market is, unmistakably, teenagers. As with anything involving teenagers, any form of advertising and promotion involves either the internet or mobile phone.

Hence, HarperCollins is smart enough to know that this is probably the way to go if they want to hit the market right between the eyes – QR Code marketing campaign!

The book’s release is slotted for June 16^th, 2009 and when readers or interested purchasers want to find more information on the author or the new material, the QR Code is the way to go. Through the QR Code, readers can get many materials (some exclusive stuff) through the mobile website of the author and also download many book-related content, video, images, interviews, etc from the mobile site on their mobile phones. The application to download is at http://www.m.harpercollins.com – just download and install it into your mobile phones.

To get your hands on the exclusive stuff, you either hunt down the book in the bookstores in an effort to snap a picture of the QR Code (or buy it straight off), or log into http://lacandy.mobi for them. A note to those who are not familiar with the QR Code system….only smartphone users can do this.

The reason why they’re promoting this book via this method is, clearly, due to the fact that most teenagers (their target market) are with their mobile phones. Amongst everyone else in the society, teenagers are the ones who make use of their mobile phones, facebook and twitter accounts the most. It makes perfect sense.

This is, however, not the only book that HarperCollins plan to promote via QR Codes. Upcoming books like Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics and the Amanda Project will also have QR Codes printed onto the cover of the books to promote sale.