Scanbuy Study Reveals 2D Barcode Adoption And Awareness Rates Strong Among U.S. Marketers

New York, NY – Scanbuy, Inc., the developer of the ScanLife mobile barcode platform (www.scanlife.com), today released results from a quantitative study that illustrates high awareness and adoption of 2D barcodes among U.S. marketers across a wide range of industries. Representing more than 100 marketers from both large and small businesses in industries such as healthcare, retail and entertainment, the study showed that 50% of key decision makers are already using 2D barcodes as a part of their overall marketing strategy and 86% plan to use the technology in the future.

Conducted through uSamp’s SurveyBuilder platform that includes an audience of over five million panelists from around the world, the study reveals new data from the marketer’s perspective that can be used to gain a better understanding of current adoption rates, and how campaigns are being implemented and assessed. Additional results included the following:

2D Barcode Awareness & Adoption

Difference in awareness of 2D barcodes between large and small businesses is relatively minimal with 95% and 89% respectively61% report using open source code formats with QR Codes leading by a large margin at (45%), Datamatrix (16%), Microsoft Tag (14%), EZcode (12%) and Snap Tag (11%).Top three content choices that the codes link to include: product details, promotions and coupon offersTop three media placement choices included magazines and newspapers, direct mail and product packaging

Usage Scenarios & Features

Of the 50% of respondents currently implementing 2D barcodes, the most important factors for a successful campaign include:The code format (e.g. QR Code) should be compatible with the largest number of mobile barcode scanning appsAccess to analytics from the scans including basic usage and also demographics of usersAbility to edit the code or access it at anytime from a web-based platform

69% of respondents reported using a paid 2D barcode service, while 39% reported using a free serviceWhen asked if they were happy with their experience, those that used a paid service were 50% more satisfied than those using a freeware generator.

“We’re excited to see the continued growth in awareness among marketers, and we expect both the quantity and the quality of QR Code marketing to grow considerably in 2012 with 86% of respondents reporting that they plan to use 2D barcodes in the future,” said Mike Wehrs, CEO and President of Scanbuy. “Codes are working for the majority of marketers, but clearly platforms like ScanLife can add business intelligence tools and dynamic content generation to make the experience more valuable. We look forward to working with our customers to further evolve physical to digital connections.”