BMO Capital Markets, the Toronto-based investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group, introduced barcodes in select versions of its weekly newspaper ads. The first execution of the ad appeared Friday in the Wall Street Journal, on the front page of the Money & Investing section, developed by Condon + Root with media handled by Prometheus, both of Chicago.
Titled ‘Good Health,’ the ad highlights the firm’s ninth annual Focus on Healthcare Conference which took place in New York last week. Using the camera on their mobile phone or PDA, readers of WSJ can download a free application to photograph the ad’s barcode, which then activates the device’s browser and links directly to a customized page on the BMO Capital Markets website. Readers are then linked to the conference archive web page, which contains webcast presentations, research reports and marketing materials on the more than 75 companies that presented during the event.
‘These are things that we can use selectively,’ says Rick Kuwayti, head of marketing for BMO Capital Markets, of the barcodes. BMO has a year-long ad contract with WSJ, which the company’s corporate and executive demo trusts for financial news, according to their research. ‘It all comes down to just another way of being able to deliver information to our clients.’
