Neustar & Visa Check Your Balance Contest

VISA "Check Your Balance" Contest at GSMA Mobile World Congress.

Visa, NeoMedia, and Neustar have joined forces to launch a promotional contest targeted to more than 30,000 attendees at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona during the week of February 15 to the 18.

The contest is targeted to a savvy crowd of telecommunications and mobile marketing professionals to illustrate how easy, simple, and fast barcodes can make financial transactions.

Anyone with a camera phone can scan a barcode on the back of a gift card, for example, that would allow them to check the balance of their card. The contest allows a user to quickly scan a barcode on a faux Visa card that links to a WAP entry form. This contest in itself illustrates the point that a person no longer has to type a long difficult string of characters to get to a web site or a WAP page.

Event attendees receive a mock Visa Gift Card at registration check-in. The card is printed with instructions on how to enter the contest. First, they need to download a free barcode reader application using your mobile browse. Once they have downloaded the barcode reader, they'll just scan the barcode on the back of the card using their mobile phone. To enter the contest, they must enter their mobile phone number and answer the question: "Where will you 'go' with VISA"?. Every 30 minutes a winner of a 50 euro Visa gift card will be selected based on the most creative answer. The winners will be notified by text message and will need to come to the Neustar booth to redeem their prize. Attendees may enter the contest once a day throughout the Mobile World Congress event.

"Establishing standards for the interoperability of barcode technology across global networks is a critical step in making large scale mobile services, like mobile offers, a reality," said Prakash Hariramani, senior business leader at Visa Inc. "As we work to integrate Visa and Neustar technology, this is but one example of the many mobile services we plan to deliver to financial institutions, merchants, consumers and network operators."

The campaign creates a compelling interaction with the Visa brand and quick gratification for the consumer, and illustrates how barcodes can make transactions simple and fast for consumers.

NeoMedia & Neustar Expand Patent Licensing

NeoMedia and Neustar announced last month that they have expanded their agreement to license NeoMedia’s patented technologies beyond the US into Mexico.

On October 6, 2009, the companies announced that they were working together to provide a “one stop shop” for consumer brands to simply and affordably use the barcode ecosystem to deliver new applications, services and compelling content to mobile consumers.

The addition of Neustar’s central registry and clearinghouse services to NeoMedia’s patented barcode ecosystem technology means that brands can now implement interoperable barcode campaigns for consumers who use any barcode scanner participating in this ecosystem regardless of the mobile service provider. The Neustar/NeoMedia collaboration enables brands to offer more targeted and dynamic communication options to mobile consumers, beyond simply taking them to the company’s website or to special micro-sites developed for specific campaigns.

"With the rapid growth of mobile Internet use in Mexico, and innovation among operators and mobile marketing agencies and the brands they serve, we are excited to bring this reliable solution to this important region," said Diane Strahan, Vice President of Mobile Services at Neustar.

Mexico remains one of the most attractive communications markets in Latin America, according to Pyramid Research. By year-end 2008, it was the second-largest market in the region at $27.1 billion, noted Cesar Jimenez, Senior Analyst at Pyramid Research. "Over the next five years, Pyramid Research expects Mexico's total market revenue to reach $29.9 billion, with mobile services revenue to account for 61 percent of the total market."

"We’ve enjoyed working with the team at Neustar to develop a reliable and scalable barcode ecosystem with all players in the market,” said Iain McCready, CEO, NeoMedia. “Mexico is an exciting market, and we look forward to enabling the mobile operators to create new revenue streams, and enabling mobile marketing firms and their brand clients to attract and serve customers using their camera equipped mobile devices for comparison shopping, to download coupons and special deals, and to take advantage of digital ticketing and other creative applications."