We have done several exclusive contents in the past including Blake Shelton’s 25 Days of Christmas as well as Scotty McCreery’s 12 Days of Christmas. We also have been running 2 seasons of the daily Hunter Hayes Road Race, so you could safely say we love unlocking exclusive content countdown!

This new project (promoting Blake Shelton’s new album: Based on a True Story..) follows in that same tradition but brings together even more mashups than countdowns we have done in the past. These include YouTube (Vevo) support (Videos), Soundcloud integration (for audio track), Facebook connect integration (for comments and sharing), Twitter API (for sharing) and back end analytics via Omniture.  We also make sure to include the buy links and social links as well. Enjoy!

You can check it out at: http://www.blakeshelton.com/listen or http://www.tweematic.com/bsb/.

Initial Page

Before Unlocking

After Unlocking

Part 2 in our QR Code Art examples series.  Here are some QR Code art examples we found on the web (including some of ours) that demonstrate a broad range of design and logo integration techniques that can be used to “pretty up” QR Code and create unique and branded art – all thanks to QR Codes built in error correction.  We have recently started design and deploying branded QR-codes, so drop us a line if you are interested in creating QR Code art. Click here for more examples.

More…

As QR codes continue to gain in usage and popularity among marketers in advertising and promotions. A common complaint that marketers have with QR Codes is that they are ugly, but guess what, QR Codes don’t have to be boring!

Here are some QR Code art examples we found on the web that demonstrate a broad range of design and logo integration techniques that can be used to “pretty up” QR Code and create unique and branded art – all thanks to QR Codes built in error correction.

We have recently started design and deploying branded QR-codes, so drop us a line if you are interested in creating QR Code art.

Here some other QR code related posts:

• Natalie Grant’s Love Revolution Album Project
• THQ’s Voltron QR Code driven scavenger hunt
• QR Code Art Examples #2

More…

We have done a couple of rather successful partner widget campaigns with a unique twist (QR codes). The idea is simple: give media partners (sites with large amounts of traffic) song premiere music widgets that they embedded on their sites.  For example, with the Pistol Annies album launch, we had 5 different song widgets (one for each song) on 5 different sites. The widgets, which were promoted by each site, allowed fans to hear a new single from the album for the first time. Once they listened to the single in its entirely they were able to scan a QR code or click the widget in order to unlock and collect one of five badges. Once they unlocked and collected all 5 badges, they were able to enter in a sweepstakes for a chance to win a flyaway to meet with the band.

This is also a good examples of some of the multi-component comprehensive campaigns we have been involved in. Here are some of the components.

Microsite:
We designed a microsite, hosted on the Pistol Annies website, that served as the start-point and

Widget:
The widget itself was developed in Flash and delivered via the Amazon CDN to ensure it would reliably and cost-effectively deliver over a million views during a week period.  The widget featured a pre-order link to iTunes, as well as links to the rules and information about the promotion. Once a user finished streaming a song, it unlocked a QR code/link they could use. This encouraged users to listen to the whole song.

Partner Sites:
The widget was premiered on 5 different partners sites (one each day) including the Pistol Annies website. Partners included: US Magazine, Country Weekly, The Boot (AOL) and Billboard Magazine.

Mobile Sweepstakes Application:
The QR code on the widget linked back to a “universal mobile application”. This application allowed fans to unlock, collect (and share) Pistol Annies badges. Badges could be shared on Facebook or Twitter.

Once all five badges were collected, fans were then able to enter the sweepstakes. The mobile application automatically remembered who they were, so logging in was not necessary.  The application was built on HTML5 and jQuery mobile and was accessible from the broad range of both desktop and mobile browsers.

Last year at Comic-con 2011 we helped video game publisher THQ organize a QR code-driven web-based scavenger hunt to promote the release of their upcoming Voltron game. The idea was simple (See video below): 5 standees with QR codes were stationed in different locations around Comic-con and fans were encouraged to find and scan all 5 QR codes in order to enter in the “Hunt to Form Voltron” Sweepstakes. The result was buzz and interest around Voltron at Comic.con 2011. PRNewser named it as part of “4 Comic-Con Efforts That Hit the Mark”, Turner PR’s “5 Ways Social Media has Changed Comic-Con 2011”, and great coverage in blogs like Mashables and others (see results section below).

Overview:
This diagram illustrates the basic flow of the scavenger hunt. We were asked by the THQ marketing team to put together a comprehensive flow diagram to help partners and stakeholders understand how the promotional campaign would work (this is just one of the graphic pieces from that flow chart).

Web-Based Application:
Participants would simply scan each of the 5 codes using their mobile phones to unlock a badge. The Metablocks Scavenger Hunt application would keep track of each unlocked badge by associating it with the participant phone or email address.  Participants were able to share their badges on Facebook and Twitter (this helped created viral buzz around the campaign).

Marketing and Promotion:
The key to the success of any Scavenger Hunt is promotion and THQ did a great job of promoting the campaign. As part of the marketing, we created an attractive poster that was used at Comic-con.  The scavenger hunt poster summarized the key aspects of the scavenger hunt and prizing elements. A version of this poster was also added as a tab on the Voltron Facebook page. At the show, the THQ team also handed out physical badges (see photos below) and postcards to promote the campaign.

We also created a scavenger hunt microsite to help promote the campaign.

THQ worked with Comic-con and had staff members promote the scavenger hunt at the show. This included creating and promoting the campaign via video content as well. This was distributed through their YouTube channel and other media outlets.

Results:
THQ summarizes some of the results in the infographic below (from this Behance post).

– Check out more photos here

The promotion generated a tremendous amount of buzz at Comic-con 2011 and was covered widely by bloggers including PopArtistsVille.com, Building Social Bridges, PRNewser, MovieViral, TurnerPR, and Mashables.   

Last year we pitched the idea of using QR codes on album covers to a number of our label partners. Obviously, this is not a new idea, but we continue to think its a good one! Why? Several reasons. QR Codes provide a “virtual connection” between your offline physical CD with a world online content such as video, audio, special landing pages, and much more. Fans can “preview” albums while still in the store, labels and management can run sweepstakes, contests and discount programs that leverage QR codes on CD (we’ll talk about these and other applications in the future).  We like QR codes on CD covers because they are a “low-cost or no-cost” idea. You can generate a QR code for free (custom or branding QR codes that are designed may cost a little more).

The online mobile applications that host and stream your content are also inexpensive (we have several cost-effective mobile platforms designed specifically for hosting these QR code tie-ins, and other more complex QR code-driven applications such as contests and sweepstakes). Stay tuned for other CD cover specific QR code and AR (augmented reality) code-driven applications and examples.

Natalie Grant: Love Revolution Cover

Metablocks Code2Music Mobile Application:

Other CD Cover QR Code Examples:
No one will deny, QR codes are becoming more and more widespread as the new mobile marketing trend! They’re also appealing because of the low cost of implementation. Here are some other examples of artists using QR codes on their CD.