Member Article

Premier League football club snaps up Hull-made app

Innovative marketing app SmartPicture, developed by Hull-based Eon Visual Media, has been snapped up by Premier League football club Hull City to create a link between print and mobile communications on match days.

The football club has employed SmartPicture technology in its match day programmes, allowing fans to scan images with a smart phone to go to special mobile offers and competitions.

The app also takes users to a wide range of mobile content, bespoke to each match day, including video footage, statistics and Tiger Leisure – Hull City’s online commerce site.

It also includes ‘tweet from your seat’, a link that automatically puts up-to-date match day hashtags into tweets sent by SmartPicture users.

Built by Eon Visual Media and incorporating Digimarc technology, SmartPicture is among the first print-to-mobile apps not to require visual codes such as QR codes or Microsoft Tags to function.

It is available on the iTunes store and Google Play and allows logos and graphics on packaging and marketing literature to be scanned by a mobile device which directs the user to carefully selected online content.

The app was also used in the Allam British Open – one of the world’s greatest squash tournaments – to promote ticket sales and merchandise.

Nick Thompson, managing director of Hull City Tigers, said bringing SmartPicture into the club’s marketing strategy has allowed for a greater level of engagement between the club and the fans on match days.

Matt Dass, managing director of Eon Visual Media, said he was delighted the app had been adopted by a premiership football club.

He said: “Having the technology adopted by a football club demonstrates its flexibility.

“Whatever medium you are working with; sales boards, brochures, product packaging, even clothing, if it has a visual element we can harness SmartPicture technology to extend the medium as far as you would like it to go with the addition of a bespoke, mobile marketing element.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .