Top U.S. magazines using mobile codes (e.g. QR) more and more

A quarterly survey of the top 100 U.S. national consumer magazines reports that use of mobile codes such as QR, was up 107% between the second quarter of this year and the same period last year. 

According to a story on MobileMarketing Daily, some sort of mobile milestone was reached as every one of the top 100 magazines had at least one code and 90% had more than 10.

"The count is likely to go up considerably in the next report, since the all-important September issues of many magazines are going all-in for mobile activation. A number of titles are using image recognition techniques to make almost every ad actionable. GQ plans to mobilize every ad in its September issue, while Seventeen will have over 250 mobile-ready images.

"Mobile activation is emerging as a standard operating procedure for some print ads. In just a year, the share of print ads with codes has risen from 5% to 10%. QR codes continue to be the leading form of activation, with over 80% of the instances. But watermarking and image recognition techniques via augmented reality apps have emerged as important areas of growth. On the editorial side, magazines prefer the less intrusive nature of triggering technologies."