Allure magazine has partnered with Microsoft Tag for its annual Free Stuff issue this August, allowing readers to use their smartphones to participate in $725,000 worth of beauty product giveaways, which are awarded on a first-come, first-win basis.
In years past, readers could log on to Allure’s website to enter the contests and sign up for text alert reminders. This year, however, the promotion is moving to smartphones.
To take part in the contests, which begin August 2, readers can type gettag.mobi into their mobile browsers to download the Microsoft Tag Reader. Using the app, they can scan the Tag in the magazine or on Allure’s Free Stuff page to register. Users can also opt to get text message alerts fifteen minutes before each event occurs and then scan the Tag to enter.
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft Tag, the product is Microsoft’s version of the QR code, a 2-D barcode that can be scanned using a QR reader app to pull up images, video and a range of other interactive features. Although there are a number of QR code readers available in smartphone app stores, Microsoft Tag requires its own reader app.
QR codes are currently popular with smartphone users in Japan and we think they are poised to hit the mainstream in the U.S. following recent campaigns with major U.S. brands like Calvin Klein Jeans, the City of New York and the Detroit Redwings.
Yet Microsoft Tag is making serious headway. The group has partnered with a number of Conde Nast titles, including W and Golf Digest, to get its codes into magazines and its app on users’ smartphones. The Allure campaign is “the largest single deployment of Microsoft Tag in a magazine to date,” Aaron Getz, general manager of Microsoft Tag, said in a release.
Senior Global Media Strategist Anna Kim-Williams elaborated in an e-mail, “We targeted print publications when we launched Tag, understanding the power of turning something static to something interactive. Conde Nast decided to use Microsoft Tag in its Golf Digest editorial in their November issue and placed about a dozen Tags magazine that linked to a golf improvement videos. It was a huge success and continues to remain some of the highest scanned Tags to date. Conde Nast then put Tags in a few more of their other titles and extended it to their advertisers.” Advertisers then began using the Tags across their own channels, Kim-Williams said, and now the group is targeting several other verticals, including retail, real estate, consumer products and museums. Tags are currently free to develop and use.
Whether or not Microsoft Tag will overtake QR codes in the U.S. remains to be seen. Tags do offer some functionality that QR codes don’t, including the ability to dial a phone number, exchange contact information and send text messages. They can also be made smaller than QR codes — an attribute that should become an important selling point as the product moves into the packaged goods space. Microsoft Tag was first introduced at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas in January 2009, and recently came out of beta. Since January, more than one billion Tags have been created by individuals and businesses around the world.
Coming back to Allure, the major advantage of Microsoft Tag in this instance is that participants are no longer tied to their computers at contest entry times. Instead, they can keep a tear-out or printout of the the master Tag in their wallets to scan and enter giveaways on-the-go.
“It gives [readers] a connection to the magazine anywhere there is a phone signal,” Allure Editor-in-Chief Linda Wells explained. “What we’ve done is use Tag to give readers what they want—a fast, easy, and more convenient way to participate in our giveaways.“
What do you think of Allure’s decision to use Microsoft Tags over QR codes? Would you be more likely to participate in timed magazine giveaways if you could do so via your smartphone?
Disclosure: Microsoft is a Mashable sponsor.
Reviews: Mashable
More About: allure, conde nast, magazine, MARKETING, media, microsoft, microsoft tag, QR Codes
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