NEW YORK ? Mobile bar codes are a quick way for consumers to engage with the brand and its content, but it can either be a hit or miss for brands.

At the Digiday Mobile conference, executives spoke about ways that mobile bar codes can be effective for brands, publishers and consumers. During the ?Digiday Debates: Mobile bar codes,? panel, industry leaders discussed both the positive and negative effects of mobile bar codes.

?Mobile bar codes connect the physical world with the digital world and can drive mobile engagement,? said Bill McQuain, director of business development at Microsoft Tag, Redmond, WA.

?But in order to use them, companies need to either do it right or not at all,? he said.

Bank on bar codes
In order to effectively use bar codes, there must be a piece of valuable content for consumers who scan them.

?Good bar codes do something interesting and relevant with a call to action,? Mr. McQuain said.

?Users are not going to play with it if it is not engaging,? he said.

One of the pitfalls of mobile bar codes for consumers is knowing which bar code scanner app works with the code.

According to Mr. McQuain, there are more than 200 different code readers available, making the market fragmented.

The key to finding value that mobile bar codes give depend on what they link back to.

?All too often, people stick codes with no calls to action on them,? Mr. McQuain said.

To back up his case, Mr. McQuain used Allure magazine as an example of a client that effectively leveraged mobile bar codes with giveaways.

Allure's Microsoft Tags from the August 2010 issue

The women?s magazine used bar codes to drive giveaways in the August 2010 issue and generated more than 444,572 scans (see story).

Companies that link to desktop content instead of mobile-optimized content is also an issue.

Subpar speed
Abbe Cherkaoui, general manager at Goldspot Media, Sunnyvale, CA, also spoke during the panel.

Unlike Mr. McQuain, Ms. Cherkaoui does not believe that mobile bar codes are effective.

As an example, the executive polled the audience to see how many participants had bar code scanners downloaded on their mobile devices.

Less than half the audience made up of mobile industry leaders raised their hands.

?We need to look at consumers and how they are engaging with mobile bar codes if we?re not using it either,? Ms. Cherkaoui said.

The executive also said that mobile bar codes often have an unclear call to action.

?On most campaigns with mobile bar codes, you don?t know what you?re going to get,? Ms. Cherkaoui said.

According to Ms. Cherkaoui, marketers think they need to push mobile initiatives because it is a trend, but they do not understand the key reasoning behind it.

For instance, research has found that consumers who scan mobile bar codes tend to be young, tech-savvy males.

?If I?m a mom, QR codes are all over the place but are not relevant to my lifestyle,? Ms. Cherkaoui said. ?It all goes back to the brand and what they are trying to achieve."

?Mobile bar codes will become more exciting for brands and companies if more data is published," she said.

"If I?m a brand or marketer, I think I have to get into mobile, but I?m not seeing the statistics to back it up.?

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York