Tissot Swiss Watches is making its sponsorship of NASCAR driver Danica Patrick interactive by placing a QR code on the hood of her racecar.

Ms. Patrick will drive the Tissot-branded No. 7 Chevrolet featuring the mobile bar code during the Nationwide series CampingWorld.com 300 race Oct. 9, which will be televised on ESPN2. Tappinn, which powers the QR code, claims that this is the first racecar to feature a mobile bar code.

?We have a platform that lets you build mobile smart sites?mobile Web pages?and from within the platform you can generate, track and manage QR codes,? said Nick Ford, Hoboken, NJ-based cofounder of Tappinn.

?People can scan the Danica Patrick bar code and they are taken to a mobile page featuring the lineup for the race, a schedule of events, information about Danica and Dale Earnhardt Jr.?s JR Motorsports, social media links for Danica and Tissot Swiss Watches branding,? he said.

?Tissot is the primary sponsor?its logo is on the car and the brand got to include the QR code promoting Danica-endorsed watches?she is one of its brand ambassadors.?

Tissot is a Swiss watchmaker company founded in 1853 by Charles-Felicien Tissot and his son Charles-Emile, who established the Tissot factory in the city of Le Locle, Switzerland.

Tappinn claims to be is the world?s first mobile ?smart site? mobile tagging platform.

Tissot targets racing fans
Tissot is using the QR code as a unique way to get racing fans involved in its sponsorship of Danica Patrick, encouraging them to interact with the brand.

All of Tappinn?s mobile bar codes, including the Danica Patrick QR code, can be read using various downloadable applications such as Scanbuys?s ScanLife, NeoMedia Technologies? NeoReader and 3GVision?s i-nigma.

Here is the collateral promoting the Danica Patrick Tissot QR code:

Ms. Patrick calling attention to the QR code:

Tissot has a Danica Patrick Collection line of watches:

TAPP that bar code
TAPP is an acronym for Transmission Activated by Permission Protocol.

Mr. Ford said he believes the mobile phone is an intensely private medium.

Respecting this principle, every mobile site created on the Tappinn platform provides information that consumers find both useful and welcome, per Mr. Ford.

With Tappinn, brands can design and build mobile Web sites and content that can be updated in real time.

All Tappinn pages are automatically formatted to fit any smartphone browser and programmed to work with traditional and touchscreen navigation.

The Tappinn platform lets brands such as Tissot deploy QR codes on all forms of print and visual media.

When read with a QR reader from a smartphone, embedded URLs in Tappinn?s QR codes create shortcuts so consumers can go directly to the content they want.

Brands can create hundreds of QR codes to track and target unique environments, specific markets and exact locations.

Each Tappinn page is shareable on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter.

Links can be set to take the user to social fan pages to build a following.

All user engagements with each site can be tracked with Tappinn reporting.

Analyzing data can be used to make decisions about future mobile campaigns.

Brands can see how many people are visiting and what they are doing on their site.

Information such as where engagements occurred, when they happened, how long the session lasted and what pages were visited and shared can be collected.

?QR codes are an awesome new way to deliver content,? Mr. Ford said. ?We build mobile Web content for something like a racecar or a storefront.

?QR codes are a whole new way to distribute Web content,? he said. ?The whole concept of QR-connected content has so many variables as far as what can be valuable, including location.

?Danica?s racecar symbolizes the way it?s going, with QR codes connecting digital content to physical things and vice versa.?

Final Take