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Business.
商業。
Mobile marketing.
移動營銷。
Square deal.
方寸之間的營銷。
After many false starts, QR codes are finally taking off.
在沉寂多年后，QR碼最終開始成功。
EREAL boxes are, by and large, poor works of literature. Yet many people sit at breakfast reading them over and over again.
早餐麥片包裝盒上的文字說明，一般情況下不會文采飛揚，但還是有很多人會在吃早餐時看上一遍又一遍。
Last year Kellogg's realised it could make its packets more entertaining-and guessed that people also had their phones to hand (anything beats talking to the family).
直到去年，麥片品牌凱樂格（Kellogg's）才意識到，因為多數人有這種習慣，所以他們產品的包裝盒應該變得更有趣。同時，他們推測，人們在吃早餐時，往往不是邊吃邊與家人聊天，而是隨手拿著自己的手機玩。
The cornflake-maker put 2D codes, better known as QR (for quick response) codes, on its Crunchy Nut boxes in America.
基于此，凱樂格在其在美國出售的Crunchy Nut麥片的包裝盒上加上了二維碼，或稱QR碼（QR即快速反應"Quick Response"之意）。
When scanned, these took cereal-munchers to a video of dawn in, say, Washington state.
人們掃描該產品包裝盒上的QR碼后，程序將自動播放據說是華盛頓州的黎明景象。
The idea was to push cereal as an all-day snack: "It's morning somewhere."
這個創意的口號是"處處是黎明，時時可享用"，旨在將以前僅作為早餐食用的麥片打造成全天可享用的小吃。
QR codes-squares of black-and-white patterns-have much to recommend them.
QR碼是一組在正方形平面上分布的黑白相間的圖案，優越性很高。
They store far more information than plain, old bar codes.
比起以前常見的條形碼，QR碼數據容量更大。
For example, they can fit in web addresses and logos.
例如，它可以記錄網址或徽標。
And they are cheap. They have been popular in Japan for years, but elsewhere have for a while been touted as the next big thing. (In 2009 this newspaper said they were "on the point of breaking out".)
同時，QR碼成本較低。近年來，QR碼在日本被廣泛應用，但在其他地方還有待推廣。（2009年，本報已表明QR碼的應用"將會爆炸性增長"。）
Over the past year, QR codes have quietly slipped into the marketing mainstream.
過去一年中，QR碼悄然進入主流市場。
Three-quarters of American online retailers surveyed by Forrester, a research firm, use them. In April nearly 20% of smartphone users in America scanned one, up from 14% in May last year (see chart 1).
根據弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）對四分之三美國網絡零售商的調查顯示，今年四月，美國20%的智能手機用戶用手機掃描了QR碼，而去年五月這個比例為14%。
According to comScore, another research company, more than two-thirds of Americans and Europeans who scan QR codes do so in order to obtain information about a product.
根據另一家研究公司comScore的數據顯示，在掃描QR碼的美國人和歐洲人中，有三分之二是為了獲取產品信息。
Japanese smartphone-owners, by contrast, are most likely to download a discount coupon or a special offer (see chart 2).
相比之下，日本手機用戶掃描QR碼，更多的是為了下載打折券或特價優惠。
Scanlife, a provider of QR code services, saw the number of unique users scanning codes through its system triple in the year to March.
二維碼提供商Scanlife發現，截止今年三月，使用他們的系統掃描QR碼用戶增長了兩倍之多。
One reason for the rise is the proliferation of smartphones with high-quality cameras and the corresponding decline in data charges.
他們表示，一個原因是持有高質量攝像頭的智能手機的人數激增，同時，手機上網數據流量的價格降低。
It also took time for people to realise why advertisements contained mutant crosswords.
另一個原因就是經過一段時間的推廣后，人們開始接受廣告中出現的與縱橫字謎有些相像的QR碼。
And perhaps most important, marketers have only now worked out how best to use QR codes. Simply sending customers to the company website is not enough, says Melissa Parrish, an analyst at Forrester.
最重要的原因是，市場營銷公司目前想出了充分利用QR碼進行營銷的辦法。弗雷斯特研究公司分析師梅利莎·帕里什表示，現在僅僅向消費者提供本公司的網址是不夠的。
In-store promotions are catching on. Coupons are always popular. Real-world treasure hunts have also been successful.
店內促銷開始興起，優惠券營銷始終流行，類似于"真實尋寶"的營銷也已獲得成功。
For marketers, QR codes bridge the gap between offline and online worlds.
在市場營銷人員看來，QR碼可以連接網絡與現實世界。
Customers who use them are, in effect, asking to be told more about the company. The success of a campaign is easy to measure by the number of scans.
實際上，通過掃描QR碼，消費者希望更多地了解提供產品的公司；而通過QR碼被掃描的次數，公司也可以很容易了解到其營銷活動是否成功。
Expect to see a lot more of those funny little black-and-white patches.
未來，我們希望這些有趣的、黑白圖案相間的QR碼越來越多。
