Ford Adopt Mobile

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Microsoft Tag technology is an updated mobile bar code that turns phones into marketing devices.
 
The 2010 Ford Taurus’s spec sheet reads like Captain Kirk’s shopping list – everything from ‘radar-based cruise control’ and ‘EcoBoost green-friendly acceleration’ to a ‘Blind Spot Information System’. All in all, the Taurus has ten class-exclusive, consumer-oriented technologies. This presented Steve Ling, Car Marketing Manager for Ford, with a challenge: how do you explain these complex features without giving consumers information overload?
 
The solution was Microsoft Tag, Microsoft’s new ‘bar code-on-steroids’ that creates a whole new way to give consumers useful, relevant information. It provides animated tours of the Taurus’ slick technologies on a mobile phone, wherever and whenever consumers want to see them, just by hovering their phones over a colourful symbol provided on marketing brochures, advertisements, catalogues and, of course, in-store digital signage.
 
Companies such as Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, LionsGate Entertainment and Kobe Bryant have also signed up to use Microsoft Tags since the technology was introduced.
 
Kevin Kerr, Industry Technology Strategist at Microsoft: “Microsoft Tag has the potential to build closer ties between consumers and advertisers. Tag can also help turn consumer interest into consumer action, and it can help identify which parts of an advertising campaign are generating income and which are not.”
 
The Nuts and Bolts
 
A Microsoft Tag is a new type of bar code, optimised for reading on mobile phones, with symbols that can form trillions of combinations. When a consumer downloads the Microsoft Tag application and then takes a picture of a Tag, the application performs an action, such as opening a Web browser and taking the consumer to a URL or dialing a phone number. Consumers can receive multimedia information, discount coupons, purchase options or other marketing or informational material. Consumers can also make their own Tags, linking them to their Facebook pages or simply sharing their contact information in a new way.
 
The Tags are so small they can be used almost anywhere in advertisement content or other marketing material. They can also be customised with, for instance, a company logo, so Tags can be added to digital signage, display ads, point-of-purchase displays and any where else you can think of.
 
Embedded bar codes that provide a consumer with more information aren’t entirely new, but the high-capacity bar codes created by Microsoft Research include several innovations. Microsoft Tags were the first to use colour to make the Tags more attractive. They can therefore include logos, photos, branding or other marketing content directly in the Tag. They work with the relatively limited, fixed-focus cameras on many mobile phones, so the pictures of them can be blurry or from an angle. Microsoft also makes the process of creating and using Tags easier for companies and consumers.
 
To deploy Tags, marketers fill out a form on the Microsoft Web site, including the URLs or phone numbers they want their Tags to contact. Microsoft automation produces the Tag in a form that can be inserted into promotional materials. Consumers go to a website to download the Tag application, and then they’re ready to connect.
 
Sales Drive
 
In the case of the Ford Taurus launch, Microsoft Tags directed users to videos less than a minute long that demonstrate the power and operation of features such as EcoBoost, which uses direct-injection technology for up to 20% better fuel economy, 15% fewer CO2 emissions, and superior driving performance versus larger-displacement engines; Collision Warning with Brake Support, which uses radar technology to monitor traffic ahead and alerts the driver with a visual ‘heads-up’ display on the windshield and an audible warning tone that mutes the audio system; and the Blind Spot Information System (BLIS), which warns drivers of vehicles approaching their ‘blind zone’ by illuminating an indicator located in the exterior mirrors. BLIS works in conjunction with Cross Traffic Alert, which warns the driver of approaching vehicles when the car is in reverse.
 
Marketers, including those at Ford, see Microsoft Tags as helping them to reach key audiences in ways not possible before. Ford’s Ling explained,“The target customers for this car are ‘substance seekers’ who want as much information as possible – and this technology gives it to them the way they want it: on their own terms.”
 
 
“This is an absolute breakthrough in the technology of marketing a car, and helps us in our mission to completely reposition the Taurus as the most technologically advanced vehicle not only at the price, but at twice the price.”
 
 
In the past, Ford might have devised a traditional launch that included print advertisements with a lot of information on the car’s new technology, but as Ling explained, “It wouldn’t be interesting or customer-driven – customers wouldn’t be able to focus on the additional information they wanted, when they wanted it. Now, they can.”
 
Lew Echlin, Car Communications Manager for Ford, added, “We’re also impressed by how the consumer interacts with the Microsoft Tag technology. The download is quick and there’s no need to reboot – it’s a low-impact app. And it’s visually exciting. When the consumer snaps a Tag, the phone literally traces the outline of the Tag and turns green when it identifies it; it’s like an F-16 locking in on a target before firing.”
 
Analytical capabilities built into the Microsoft Tag system mean that, as Ford’s use continues, it will be able to generate information not only about which of its videos are viewed the most, but also which marketing media, such as in-store signage or display advertisements, are the most popular points of origin. This will help Ford to refine its advertising budget for maximum effectiveness.
 
Aaron Getz, Product Unit Manager at Microsoft summarised: “Microsoft Tag technology is important because the consumer’s life is more mobile today than ever before, and this technology extends the traditional marketing relationship to the mobile environment. It lets people interact with the world around them and take advantage of their existing mobile phones in a new way.”
 
“We’re seeing companies making highly innovative use of the technology today – and we’re only at the dawn of this technology,” said Kerr.
 
Ford’s Echlin agrees: “We’re using the most technologically advanced marketing tool to promote the most technologically advanced Ford available. It’s a match made in advertising heaven.”