Central Garden & Pet has tapped Mobius image recognition technology to engage mobile Pennington Ultimate Grass Seed consumers and let them access lawn care information on the go.

Consumers can use any camera-enabled mobile phone to snap a picture of the Pennington Ultimate Grass Seed product and email it to . CompEx Inc.?s Mobius will then provide access to a free lawn guide, video planting tips, other Central Garden products available and additional content that is specifically designed for mobile users.

?The Central Garden & Pet strategy is to have a mobile dialogue with those select customers that request the interaction by snapping a picture of the actual bag of Pennington Ultimate Grass Seed,? said Aram Kovach, CEO of Mobius, Columbus, OH. ?The action is voluntary and is designed to help consumers with planting and lawn care tips.

?The reply provides a very personal user interaction, which does not end with the reply?it enables them to look for other products and see how best to apply them and when to do so,? he said. ?It provides related product information and instructions with video clips  and textual advice on when to plant and when to mow.

?The system has been provisioned to enable future features to help you plant your grass seeds at the optimal time when the right weather conditions arise in your physical geographic area.?

Mobile image recognition
The mobile experience was designed by Central Garden?s agency, IQ, based in Atlanta.

IQ crafted the in-store mobile experience to improve purchase rate and consumer satisfaction by increasing the confidence of consumers through delivery of relevant, meaningful and helpful content, all with the snap of a single photo.

Pennington Grass Seed Palette display at Sam?s Club stores using Mobius image recognition technology

Mobius claims to be the only mobile image recognition service that works globally without a download and lets consumers to interact directly with a brand.

The Mobius image recognition program debuted with Pennington Ultimate Grass Seed and will feature additional Central Garden & Pet products that are currently available at Sam?s Clubs and a select group of Walmart stores.

A sticker on each grass seed bag explains how consumers can take advantage of the mobile program in three steps.

Mobius is a mobile-enabled service for consumers to interact with brands through their mobile phones that works with all media by taking a photo of the brand logo or image.

The company can supply the back-end data of mobile phone number, carrier and model, as well as city, state and country for the brand.

The Mobius image recognition service is free to registered members. Users pay the charges associated with their mobile phone service contract. Standard carrier messaging and data rates apply.

?The idea is that instead of selectively targeting smartphone users or only iPhones, Mobius works with all brands of phones,? Mr. Kovach said. ?So the target demographic is young home owners and or those who are perhaps unsure of how to achieve optimal results and need a little hand-holding.

?They can now turn to Mobius for an up-to-the-minute instructional manual that is in your pocket or in your hand any time you need answers,? he said.

Mobius claims that the product package did not need to be altered in any way.

With an on-pack sticker with the call-to-action the Pennington Ultimate Grass Seed brand was what remained in the consumers mind in their phones, per Mr. Kovach.

?The idea is simple, draw the attention of the consumer to the brand that the company has been marketing, not an abstraction, which is meaningless,? Mr. Kovach said. ?The technology is the only one of its kind which is self-learning?it actually gets better the more times its used.

?The system has the ability to improve its responses all on its own without human intervention,? he said. ?The sophisticated Mobius technology can differentiate from the bags and logos and even reply differently when it sees something else other than the actual bag?s image, creating a unique mobile interactive dialogue with the consumer.?

Final Take