Bluefly starts using bar codes in TV commercials

written by:

Details

Published on Tuesday, 28 September 2010 08:26

Bar codes, "are arriving on television," according to The New York Times.  Bluefly, an online fashion retailer will run commercials on Bravo for their "Closet Confessions" campaign, in which celebrities and designers are interviewed. Scanning the barcode will take viewers to a five-minute episode on their mobile device and will give them exclusive access to a discount.

As the ease of bar code scanning increases and big television brands (such as The Weather Channel and HBO) try out the interactive feature, will offering an exclusive branded video be enough to get users to purchase products?  Will Bluefly be able to generate sales with a clip hyper-focused to cater to fashion lovers?

There is one factor that plays a huge threat to the idea of bar-coding during live commercials - Internet-ready TVs. eMarketer published DisplaySearch's "Quarterly TV Design and Features" report that says by 2014, 119 millions of Internet-Connected TVs will be shipped up from this year's number of 45.

With an internet enabled TV, a space that Google is looking to own, will the consumer need to take out their mobile device, open their bar-code app, snap the barcode, get to the site and then decide to purchase or will they prefer to instantly click through to a product page featuring socially enhanced product reviews? The answer will probably be the latter.