Crack the convenience code

The black and white maze popping up in all Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties marketing looks confusing to some.

But the mysterious square bar code, called a QR (Quick Response) Code, actually unlocks the key to more information. Using a smart phone, real estate buyers or agents can take a picture of the code and instantly access a photo, video, website or webpage that provides more detail. No more looking for lost listing fliers or scraps of paper with phone numbers.

Coldwell Banker is the latest in a string of Hawaii companies to embrace QR codes, which began appearing in their advertising yesterday. However, the codes have been around since 1994, when Japanese scanning equipment maker Denso Wave Inc. introduced the technology, and have been increasingly used by other Hawaii businesses.

While QR code technology is not new, it is new to the Hawaii real estate industry, said Lori McCarney, senior vice president for Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties.

"Homebuyers, like all consumers, sometimes need more information quickly, while they are on the go," she said. "Imagine walking by a yard sign and wondering how much the home costs, how big it is and what it looks like. When our signs carry QR codes, a prospective buyer will be able to instantly see those property details."

Most smart phones come with a QR reader built in, and in the case of iPhones, users can select from different applications, McCarney said.

"It’s really simple to use," she said. "And, since more than 90 percent of our customers use the Internet in their homebuying process, we figured that this would be a good way to bridge the gap between our print and Internet advertising."

Some real estate clients, particularly those from Japan, are familiar with QR codes, McCarney said.

"Hawaii is only at the beginning of this technology," she said. "It’s big in Japan, increasingly popular in Europe and it’s catching on in the California market, where one of our Silicon Valley companies has been exploring it."

A similar movement also has made its way to Consolidated Theatres, which runs movie screens at Ward, Kahala, Koko Marina, Pearlridge, Mililani and Kapolei. Consolidated has offered mobile ticket purchases for a few months, said Rachel Gibson, the chain’s Hawaii promotions manager.

Moviegoers who purchase mobile tickets will be sent a bar code that they can use to bypass ticket windows and kiosks, she said.

"It’s not terribly popular yet," Gibson said, "but we think it will catch on as people learn more about it. It’s best for people who are running late and want to make sure they get a seat."

While QR codes are just catching on in Hawaii, they are the most popular type of two-dimensional codes in Japan, said Yuko Hiratsuka, marketing, media and public relations specialist at PacRim Asia-Pacific Headquarters, located in Tokyo.

"The codes, which store addresses and URLs, already appear throughout Japan in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need more information about," Hiratsuka said.

As a result, PacRim Marketing Group Inc. & PRTech Inc. have begun to use QR codes to market Hawaii clients such as the Kahala Hotel & Resort, Ala Moana Center, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and their own site, www.myhawaii-mobi.

"We gain users using a QR code promotion on our home page, and in other media channels," said Dave Erdman, president and chief executive officer of PacRim Marketing & PRTech.

Ala Moana Center used QR codes at the JATA/World Travel Fair to gather data on consumers who visited their pavilion, Erdman said. The retail center also participated in the Hawaii Tourism Japan mobile website, using a QR code to direct users to content, he said.

As of May, Hawaii Tourism Japan’s QR code website received 11,983 unique visitors and about 41,264 page views, said David Uchiyama, vice president of brand management for the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

"The mobile website has continued to receive a growing number of unique visitors per month, reaching out to a new, younger demographic, many of which do not utilize the Internet via traditional home computers anymore," Uchiyama said.