Beverage brands such as C. Mondavi & Family, Butcher?s Brewing and a leading whiskey brand are boosting their on-pack QR codes with customized content, incentives, social media integrations and ecommerce.

On-pack QR codes have been embraced by many brands as a way for customers to access more in-depth product information than can be printed on packaging labels. However, consumers increasingly have higher expectations for mobile experiences, meaning that for QR codes to continue to make sense for brands there needs to be more sophisticated experiences and not just a generic landing page.

?Qliktag is unique because the brand can utilize a different QR code for each individual specific product,? said Mike Briggs, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Qliktag Software, Newport Beach, CA. ?Most QR codes are campaign driven and give an overall message about a promotion or brand.

?With Qliktag, you can change each message or incentive for every single product in your portfolio whenever you want. We feel consumers want product specify information when they are shopping,? he said.

Ecommerce tie-in
To drive sales for its newest brand, The Diving Rod, winemaker C. Mondavi & Family worked with Qliktag for on-pack QR codes that link to mobile-friendly product pages with information about a particular wine, including tasting notes, optimal serving temperatures and food pairings,

Additionally, customers who have scanned a bottle with their phones can connect to an ecommerce experience with just a few clicks to make a purchase.

Hoping to build customer loyalty by providing more detailed information about its beers, craft beer brand Butcher?s Brewing teamed up with Qliktag to create a retail mobile merchandising strategy.

On-pack QR codes are linked to a different landing pages for each type of beer it offers to deliver tasting notes, how each product was made and an incentive for a next purchase.

Besides driving sales, one goal of the effort for the brand is to collect data about its customers.

Facebook integration
A leading whiskey brand linked its on-pack QR code strategy with social media to further drive brand engagement.

The campaign was built around the tagline "How Do You Hitch?" and invited consumers to experiment with the product to come up with different flavors of their own. Customers who scanned QR code labels on bottles of the whiskey were prompted to key in their suggestions for a combination of their favorite whiskey and beer brand to come up with their own "hitch."

After naming their hitch, participants were invited to share the creation with their friends on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

?The rest of the world is seeing a huge participation in scanning and the US is now heating up," Mr. Briggs said.

?It's quick, efficient and an easy way to point a customer to the info they want at the point of purchase,? he said. ?Additionally, we have discovered that scanning increases tenfold when there is an incentive to scan - a giveaway or discount or enter to win etc.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York