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I recently got sent some information about a very interesting marketing campaign in Brazil, for an online book store called Editoras. The campaign was looking to raise awareness of Editoras in Brazil, modernise the brand, and help the brand appeal to a younger audience. With these goals in mind DDB Brazil created a campaign that featured mobile, Twitter, crowdsourcing, and QR codes.

DDB set up a system that pulled in messages of love or hate from Twitter, they then put up QR code posters around Sao Paulo which when read by peoples mobile phones displayed one of the messages of love or hate. Their next step was to create an actual book full of these QR codes and sell it on the Editoras site, as with the posters people could use their mobiles to translate the QR codes to messages of love or hate. DDB made use of the fact that QR codes can simply provide links to online content and therefore you can change what information a QR code links to by simply changing the content at the end of the link. After every 7 days all the codes in the book provided different messages of love and hate, and ‘the living book‘ was born. (See video above for a better description)

By the sounds of it the campaign was a great success. The use of mobile, Twitter, and QR codes was perfect for strengthening the associations of the brand with modern and innovative traits, and in turn will have helped them connect with a younger audience. Furthermore, the campaign actually created a product that gave people a real incentive to visit the online store.

The campaign looked to the extremes in the use of QR code and this was appropriate in regards to their objectives and the fact that the use of QR is still regarded as new and potentially exciting outside of Japan. I don’t think we’ll be writing all our books in QR code but maybe if QR codes can establish themselves outside of Japan they can play some role in the enhancing the communication channel based on some of the principles seen in this campaign.

Perhaps QR codes could be placed on book covers so users can make a quick and easy check that the book is the latest version, or maybe QR codes could be placed next to various facts or figures to provide a quick link to the latest data. Taking things to the next level, print media could be produced before all the information is available, for example create a poster for an event before details such as the time or cost have been decided, simply put a QR code in place of this information and people can get the information when it’s available by scanning the QR code. Of course, the successful use of QR codes in entirely dependent on  the content they deliver, after all the QR code is simply a link and a way of bringing that content to the audience. What ‘the living book’ campaign demonstrates is just how we can use QR codes to merge communication channels, allowing us to bring new types of digital content (i.e. updated information from Twitter) to various non-digital mediums (i.e. books).

The Living Book