Love Making profile - track your performance, social media style

The following video is a brilliant recap of what in my opinion is the best sex-themed campaign of the year - the aim was to promote AIDS awareness and the importance of condoms among the young swedish.

The clever marketing mix used is perfectly in target: social media, smartphones, QR codes, iPhone apps and obviously, condoms!

Approx 50K condoms were donated in the streets of Stockolm: behind each and every one was a QR code linked to the official app of the campaign...an iPhone app was supposed to be launched before every "bed session"...so that both the intensity, duration and noise of the intercourse would be registered and translated in graphs!

The statistic are then shared, community style, results and behaviours can be compared and tracked, and there are even merchandising opportunities (t-shirts with your performance) - there's an incredible attention to the details in every aspect of the campaign, from the updated banners among city websites, up to the 10 sec headstart to wear the condom before the start of the measuring on the iPhone, even if it's so grand in scope.

And what about the results? Just wait for the end of the video...but expect a success

QR Codes: sport and lingerie

QR codes are probably some of the most overrated marketing tools: until now, the lack of a real spread of QR reader has stopped this cool idea from actually....working.

They are useful as attention-getter, but the actual (economic) payback is yet to be verified (even if they've been used for years).

Still, every now and then, the QR codes are used in an interesting way - this means that they're not simple "links" to more informations, but are actually somehow "embedded" in a message, or particularly coherent with the environment.

A couple of examples:

Victoria's Secret: here the QR codes are used to "censor" the naked bodies of Victoria's Secret models, and the reader can actually provide the full image (even though the lingerie shows up!)

Betfair: the betting website had a deal with a duo of professional beach volleyball players, to have the QR code appear on their back - a mix of QR code advertising and ass-vertising, which might actually work due to the fact that during a sport event, people are already receptive and, probably. doing photos: the set up is definitely positive for a QR campaign in public events

Even with these creative ideas, the success of QR codes in the end will be linked more to the diffusion of the technology (I'm thinking about a default integration in the smartphones' camera) and of the internet access...from everywhere, for everybody. Will they survive untile then?