The Jersey City Independent "

The new media-advertising start-up CodeSquare got its start from an offhand remark between friends — an appropriate beginning for a business model that takes its cue from social media.

As Salvatore Salpietro tells it, his friend and future business partner Austin Jenkins noticed a painting of Marilyn Monroe hanging on Salpietro’s wall and told him how much he liked it. To which Salpietro replied: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could click on it with your phone and Facebook ‘Like’ it?”

And in that single comment, Salpietro demonstrated not only how pervasive social media has become — but how smartphones have changed the shopping experience.

“We just went wild with ideas,” Salpietro says, “and CodeSquare was born.”

The “Like” button, of course, lets your alternate universe of Facebook friends, former classmates and professional contacts know your opinion on anything from your favorite hot sauce to your favorite band. If you like it in the real world, the thinking goes, you should share it online. It’s a thinking predicated on the strong attachment between a person and the aura of certain products and brands. This in turn creates a self-starting viral ad campaign, explains Salpietro, but one that has a catch — it’s not really very effective as it exists now.

That’s where CodeSquare comes in.

“Our mission is to make it easier for small businesses to connect with their existing customers and to find new ones,” Salpietro says. “We noticed that practically every small business is printing ‘find us on Facebook’ on everything – but so very few people do. Even loyal customers.”

“Namely,” he went on, “because there’s so little incentive.”

CodeSquare, he says, provides the technology to add this otherwise missing incentive. Using a QR code –- that is, a bar code that can be scanned by a smartphone — a business can put an advertisement for just about anything (like a coupon) just about anywhere (like a T-shirt), thus making anything instantly “Likable.” It’s an innovative advertising campaign that mixes the social media zeitgeist with smart business planning.

After a customer hits “Like,” he may receive a digital coupon immediately to use in the store, or get some kind of other discount or free sample.

Based in Downtown Jersey City, CodeSquare has a free plan envisioned for local stores and a plan that costs either $20 per month or $220 per year to help bigger companies do more market research on QR code placement. Sapietro, whose career in technology has taken him to Italy and London before returning to the area, says that CodeSquare employees 6 people spread out in Jersey City, New York City and Europe, with plans to add a few more positions locally in the next 6 months when they open their new offices. And with so many social media users (which is getting close to most people), his business advertises itself with each new client.

As a new company — CodeSquare opened to the public about a month ago — Salpietro has been pitching the “Forever Free Plan” to local stores in the area, and has found a number of takers including vintage store Kanibal Home and PJ Ryans, a bar on Barrow Street.

For Kristen Scalia, the owner of Kanibal Home in Downtown Jersey City, it is the interactivity of the QR code that’s the draw in and of itself for many of her customers. During the winter holiday season her store offered a 10-percent off promotion through a CodeSquare QR code placed next to her store’s mailbox and another by the register. She attributes her increased foot traffic to the QR-code, which she says grabbed the attention of passersby who might otherwise not shop there.

“A lot of people with smartphones see a [QR]code and instantly want to see what’s going on,” Scalia says. In fact, she says, male customers in particular would scan a code to see what it was all about and, finding a coupon they didn’t expect, would be inspired to shop.

“It’s interesting because when [male customers] scan something with their phone they are more excited about using it,” she says.

Scalia notes that it’s difficult to determine the payoff when using social media sometimes, but with CodeSquare’s model she could actually see a customer using the service. Now Scalia says she and Salpietro, who is a customer at Kanibal Home, are exploring other options for advertising, from putting out the QR code in print or putting it on her online-store in a twist on the initial premise.

While QR codes aren’t necessarily new — they were developed in 1994 to help a Toyota subsidiary track its cars — most smaller businesses have lagged behind in their usage and are only now catching up. And as they are made available for more businesses their use can be more creative. That means having a QR code tends to stand out, which has helped PJ Ryan’s (292 Barrow Street), a bar that opened a few months ago, according to owner Cameron Zonfrilli who just signed up for the service this week. So far he says he’s been impressed and plans on adding it to his beer and wine menus, flyers, and even on the outside of the building. “It’s going to be part of all my new printed material,” he said.

Zonfrilli added that because the coupons can be customized, it could always be relevant to whatever special he’s promoting. That also means customers will have an incentive to keep scanning to see what the deal is. The curiosity factor, as with Scalia’s customers, can’t be ignored. He’s also already been given suggestions by patrons of different coupons and discounts that they’d like to see. As with much in social media, the social component — more users means more ideas — is invaluable. These new ideas ranged from a free pint of beer or discount on food to a special happy hour event. “We’re new, and this is good for the community of the bar,” he says.

This business model, says Salpietro, is better than deal-of-the-day or group-deal websites (like Groupon and LivingSocial) because companies who work with those models often have to give up some of their revenue and don’t “guarantee an ongoing online relationship with the customer.”

“CodeSquare is letting the small business choose the incentive, and develop an online relationship that starts where humans actually live – offline,” he says.

(It is worth mentioning that NEW, JCI‘s sister magazine, is one of the only publications using QR codes to give our readers more access to information about their favorite business.)

Photo courtesy Salvatore Salpietro

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