Talkable Barcodes (Yes, Barcodes)

Published on Brand

A few weeks ago I posted a super-short summary of a presentation I did with Geno Church on “Bringing SEXY back to Offline Word of Mouth.” In this presentation we shared thoughts on creating talkable brands by earning opinions from customers at every touchpoint.

We ranted how the most talkable brands take common customer touchpoints and make them uncommon… uncommonly talkable. Since anything a customer can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell is a touchpoint, customer touchpoints are EVERYWHERE. Which means, word of mouth opportunities are everywhere.

Case in point, the common UPC. Many of us know this as the generic barcode but we all know barcodes are on nearly every product we buy. Yet, they all look the same.

Right?

Wrong!

There’s an emerging trend to take the common UPC and make it uncommon. Uncommonly talkable.

Sixpoint Brewery puts the Statue of Liberty on the barcodes of its canned beers.

Juicy Juice adds bubbles to the barcodes on its packaging.

Verdi Olives adds an Olive Tree to its barcodes.

And… Vanity Barcodes and Design Barcode have many more ideas on making barcodes talkable.

Like I ranted in my presentation… marketers do not decide what gets talked about, people decide. And since people make that decision, it’s up to marketers to give people something to talk about at every customer touchpoint.
If the common barcode can be made talkable, just think how many other common touchpoints can be made talkable. So, what touchpoints can your business make interesting to get customers interested?

blog post inspiration | Wall Street Journal article (June 22, 2011)