The New York Acura Association, a group of three leading New York dealers, is bridging the once seemingly unbridgeable gap in advertising between digital ad content and the physical products they represent. It’s a leap that advertisers have for years dreamed of making. In this case, a bar code technology called QR (for quick response) which, befittingly, was developed by Japanese researchers to index car parts, is positioning the group of Acura dealers to turn both the automotive and advertising industries on their heads.
The New York Acura Association, a partnership between top U.S. Acura dealers Paragon Acura (www.paragonacura.com), Rallye Acura (www.rallyeacura.com), and Acura of Westchester (www.acuraofwestchester.com), announced that it worked with Level5 Advertising (http://l5digital.com/), an auto-focused ad agency, to debut this technology two years ahead of the market. The debut QR Code appeared in the Business section of the New York Times on Wednesday, April 14.
By placing an unobtrusive (and in some cases nearly invisible) bit of QR code on a print ad, the Acura dealers will essentially enable print readers to become digital users. Readers can install a QR app on their smartphones (for instance, any phone that runs Google’s Android operating system), scan the code, and be spirited away to the relevant online content associated with the code. For example, a gleaming car ad in the Sunday paper or a favorite magazine can now be an instant segue to the car maker’s website, a video-ad, or even the car’s own Facebook page.
“It makes sense for Acura to be on the cutting edge of technology with our marketing and advertising. Our clients expect it,” said Brian Benstock, VP and General Manager of Paragon Acura. “Introducing QR Code in our print advertising is a win for both the New York Acura Association and the New York Times.”
For years, advertisers have dreamed of finding a way to connect the physical and digital worlds of advertising. The innovative move offers both the ad industry and the auto industry, which depends on attractive print ads to showcase its newest models, a vehicle to navigate the transition from print to pixel, which the world is undergoing at the moment.
That it’s a group of Acura dealers who are focusing on cutting edge technology won’t come as a surprise to either car enthusiasts or automotive industry analysts. In addition to recently winning important safety accolades—such as the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 5-star crash safety ratings for all Acura models—the brand is also distinguished for its technological prowess and willingness to stitch new ideas into its cars.
Given this, the New York Acura Association’s bold decision to take what could have been an obscure coding system and turn it into a major technical boon for automakers, advertisers and car buyers alike will probably strike anyone who’s driven or owned an Acura as little more than a standard feature.
