NEW Maize Quest Launches "The Interactive Orchard" QR Code System.

Maize Quest Brings Quick Response Code Technology to Help Farm Marketers Educate and Entertain Customers About Apples with The Interactive Orchard.

New Park, PA – (May 2011) Got a smart phone? Your customers do, or at least half of them will by fall harvest 2011 says The Nielsen Company (See attached graph). Walk into any BestBuy or scan your favorite mainstream magazine and the advertisers are using QR Codes to provide rich media to customers. Now farm marketers can use rich media, including videos, to sell and educate an increasingly “smartphone-carrying” customer base.

In an effort to easily connect farmers and direct marketers of apples to this rapidly expanding audience, Maize Quest created a tool to link farm market customers to apple variety videos on their smartphones. It’s called The Interactive Orchard. Hang the signs in the orchard or in the farm market. Guests scan them and watch informational apple video clips.

"Let guests use the tools they already have to learn more about your apples," says Hugh McPherson, Maize Quest President and co-host for the apple videos. "We’ve made it easy for farms like ours to educate and entertain our customers with their own smartphones! The best part is there's no technical set-up for the farmer.”
 

This is the QR Code for the Interactive Orchard’s Red Delicious video. Farm market guests use iPhone apps such as NeoReader, Optiscan, StickBits, Barcode, ScanLife. Android apps include NeoReader, QR Droid, ScanLife, Kaywa. Blackberry apps include Mobiletag, I-nigma. All apps are free and available from the smartphones “App Store.”

QR Codes, or Quick Response Codes, are links to other media contained in a two-dimensional barcode. It is a way to get more information to the customer than a standard apple variety sign can communicate. Guests scan the QR Code to ‘upgrade’ their media experience.

 

Click here to watch the Interactive Orchard "What is it?" video.

With the Interactive Orchard specifically, guests upgrade from a simple sign to a video, description, picture, and list of uses for the apple. If they bookmark each apple’s pages on their phone, they keep that information for the next time they visit the farm market.

Here’s how it works: Farms purchase the special signs, one each for popular varieties of apples, then display the signs in their pick-your-own orchards or at point-of-purchase in their farm markets. Each colorful sign displays a picture of the apple variety and a QR Code that links to the Interactive Orchard’s mobile web site, videos and database.

Guests scan the QR Code using their smartphones and a free, downloadable application. They are immediately linked to the Interactive Orchard’s apple variety page. Each apple variety page contains a picture of the apple, a description, typical uses and a video describing the apple and giving some fun facts.

“Just because technology isn’t your thing, doesn’t mean you should miss out on using QR Codes to inform your guests,” says McPherson. “Instead of making videos, programming web sites, finding scanners and all that, you just order and hang the signs and your guests do the rest! We’ve tried to make it easy.”

Maize Quest solved the technology side of the equation for the farm marketer by building the mobile web site, creating the codes, designing the signs, and filming the videos. All the local farm marketer has to do is order and hang the full-color, UV-protected vinyl signs. A package of 10 full-color apple variety signs costs $399 with no recurring fees. (Click to download order forms now.)

The Interactive Orchard project is a creation of the Maize Quest technical team, that usually works on creating web sites, designs and games for corn mazes. Maple Lawn Farms, Adams County Nurseries and Hollabaugh Orchards and even the Pennsylvania Apple Marketing Board contributed to the database of information guests discover after scanning the codes.

"You’ve got to engage the customer," says Ellie Hollabaugh Vranich, Assistant Business Manager at Hollabaugh Bros and co-host in the apple videos. "This is a great opportunity for farms to provide information for a public that is interested in learning more about their food. Plus, all you’ve got to do is hang up the signs.”

To contact Maize Quest to order Interactive Orchard signs for your farm market call Hugh at 1-866-935-6738 ext 102 or www.InteractiveOrchard.com to download order forms and choose your apple varieties.