Abstract:

With the adventof the internetacompany’smarketing has changed drastically. New information andcommunicationtechnologiesincrease the competition and as a consequence companieshave to rely on more creativeandeffectivemarketing campaigns. In addition totraditionalofflinemedia,onlinemarketingchannels have come to the fore. Furthermore, instead of the classical distribution over a single channel, old channels have to be combined with newmediaand operate as so-calledmulti-channel marketing. Especially the use of mobile marketingisaboutthecombinationofclassicaladvertising media and anonline touch point on a mobile device.With a growing number of smartphone users the consumer behavior as well as the pattern of web usage changes. Consumers are seeking for variety, interaction and fast and easy satisfaction of their needs. In mobile marketing campaigns, information can quickly and easily be transferred to consumers in order to ensure the competitive edge. Therefore, barcodes are currently a hot trend in marketing. In addition to theinitialuse of theproduct labelinginwarehousing and logistics,barcodeare now prevailing invirtuallyall areas of life due to the wide range of applications for codes.The applications vary from routing to a website, YouTube or Facebook, tomaking calls or paying for a product and service instead of cash or credit card. Also the application area is very broad and ranges from print media, billboards or business cards topackaging.Since many different barcodes exist, companies mainly select a specific type of code due to the amount of data to be encoded as well as the awareness and recognition factor of the symbol. So far no research was conducted to show the consumers awareness and acceptance of different barcodes. Based on an online survey this paper analyzesdifferences of attitude and awareness of multiple codes by age, gender and smartphone ownership. Furthermore reasons why people scan codes or also why they refuse these new marketing channels are discussed.