Nonprofit Rock the Vote is kicking its voter registration campaign into high gear with a new mobile landing page and a grassroots effort enabling young consumers to put up QR codes anywhere and encourage others to register to vote.

QR codes play a key role in the effort and will also appear on t-shirts, at music festivals and other events frequented by younger consumers. The QR codes link to a mobile landing page where users can register to vote for the upcoming presidential election in November, watch videos and otherwise engage with Rock the Vote.

?We choose specifically to use QR codes to target the Millennial generation, who are always on the go and use their mobile devices all the time,? said Amanda MacNaughton, co-founder of PromoJam, Los Angeles, CA. ?We wanted to bring voter registration right to their fingertips.

?Instead of typing in a URL, users simply scan a QR code, which launches a mobile landing page that has a whole bunch of interactive experiences ? they can register to vote, share the registration with friends, watch YouTube videos and enter to win the QR code t-shirts.?

Millennials get QR codes
Rock the Vote worked with social media promotions firm PromoJam to develop the digital campaign. The goal of the effort is to drive 1.5 million voter registrations.

While QR codes are still an emerging technology for much of the population, the Millennial generation already understands how to use the 2D bar codes and is used to seeing them on products, in magazines and elsewhere, per Ms. MacNaughton.

?Millennials are really savvy to QR codes and are the demographic that is using them the most ? scanning a QR codes is something that is very automatic, easy and shareable, which makes it the perfect medium and tactic for this demographic,? Ms. MacNaughton said.

Mobile users can scan the QR codes with RedLaser to launch the mobile landing page, which features education videos about the election, Facebook ?like? buttons as well as the ability to register to vote. The social integration extends to Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Google+.

Mobile is main focus
The official Scan-To-Vote Control Room Web site launched on June 14.

The Scan-To-Vote t-shirt was developed in collaboration with Junk Food Clothing, Threads for Thought and the scanning app RedLaser.

The t-shirts are sold at Whole Foods stores around the country. They are also avaiable at Threads4Thought.com, which is offering a 15 percent discount on the t-shirts for those who enter VOTE2012 at checkout.

The QR codes will also appear at a variety of music festivals such as Lollapalooza.

On the Web site there are also digital action kits enabling users to print out QR codes and put them up anywhere.

Voter registrations via the Web site go straight into Rock the Vote?s system. The organization then follows up via email to encourage users to vote on election day.

While voters are unable to register to vote online in all but ten states, Rock the Vote and PromoJam are using QR codes and mobile phones to make the voter registration procedures that exist today more accessible to young voters.

?Mobile is our number one focus for this effort,? Ms. MacNaughton said. ?It enables us to reach youth on a device that they use every single day.?

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