Neustar, a provider of solutions and directory services to enable trusted communication across networks, applications, and enterprises, placed this banner ad in a recent National Retail Federation e-newsletter.
Rare is it to find a B2B 2D campaign, but not so rare is it to find a less than ideal 2D experience. For starters, of the six to eight code reader apps that I use, only one (NeoReader) was able to successfully resolve the banner ad code. Why should this be? Was the code not tested with multiple code reader apps, or does the company believe that most people who view the banner ad would not scan the code and click on the “sign up” button instead, so whether or not the code can easily be scanned is irrelevant. My take…if and when a 2D code appears in an ad it should work, period. A company should not hedge as to whether or not consumers may or may not scan the code. Instead the company should develop the ad/code under the assumption that the code will be scanned.
When the code resolved, I was brought to the company’s desktop version of their website. Once there, I had to click on a button, which brought me to the webinar sign up page and, from there, I was able to enter my contact information to register. Question: If the company already created a landing page for the banner ad button, why not just link the code resolve to the same landing page? Why have the reader of the ad take the extra step by going to the home page first? Also, it comes as a surprise that a company like Neustar would not make use of a mobile site (i.e., a best practice).
From an overall strategic sense, I understand the premise of Neustar’s banner ad and the point the company is trying to make, but I guess I would have structured the user experience a bit differently.
Last question to the marketers at Neustar: If the e-newsletter’s audience is comprised of retailers, and the QR Code seems to be the default standard among retailers, from an open source code perspective, why are you using Data Matrix Code in your banner ad? Just curious?
2D Barcode Litmus Test: FAIL
(Thank you, Jim)
Marquis on Marketing 
Hey Roger, On the NeoReader question, I know at some point they were partnering in some capacity to try to create a 2-D clearing house similar to Neustar's SMS strong hold. Perhaps the code was generated by NeoMedia (holder of several IP protections in the space)and can only be read by NeoReader?
Best guess with little to no research on my part.
Dave: Not sure myself…but thanks for the comment.