Secret Ingredient In QR Codes

Recently, we wrote something about Augmented Reality tying in with QR Codes – and here, we have news of a new game that uses BOTH QR Code and Augmented Reality. Starting this year, fans of online games in Thailand will find themselves hunting down one Oishi Green Tea after another in search of ‘ingredients’ they can use in the online game called Oishi Cafe City.

Each green tea comes with a QR Code and customers need to purchase them if they wanted to play the game. They log onto the website http://www.oishidrink.com where the game is. No download is necessary. The customer pulls out the QR Code, scan it with a web cam for approximately three seconds, the secret ingredient is revealed in the game on their computer screen.

We are adequately impressed with the efforts put into the game because this is probably the first of its kind in this world, aside from the one created to promote the movie ‘Avatar’ recently. Outside of the entertainment industry, this is definitely the first.

Although QR Codes is currently being used primarily for promotion and advertising purposes, the open-endedness of the technology allows other applications to use it as well. That is why QR Code remains to be one of the most amazing open source creation ever.

Spokesperson from the company said that the game, despite being less than original (adapted from the popular Facebook game), is aimed at promoting loyalty and QR Code was used because it is instantly linked to anything Japanese. Oishi is a large chain of restaurants in Thailand and they mainly sell Japanese food throughout the country.

Apart from using QR Codes to create brand awareness and loyalty, the company says that they are looking to reach out to the younger generation too; because the younger generation spends a lot of time on the internet and playing games, this, says Tan Passakornatee, is the perfect solution. In Japan, a large percentage of people with personal computers or laptops have a web-cam installed on it.

Although the said game is expected to give sales a thirty percent boost this year, the company also intends to inculcate healthy problem-solving skills in the young, hitting two birds with one stone.