The Death of the QR Code

I recently read a fantastic article in everyone's favourite free newspaper to read on the bus the other day - The Metro - which was about how marketers use QR codes in ways which are completely ineffective, and have turned the QR code into a cheap gimmick and an easy way out for advertising. Here is the article in full if you fancy a read yourself, I strongly recommend it:

QR Codes: Are they already losing their appeal to brighter ideas?

We've all seen QR codes hanging about the place - on packaging, on business cards, on billboards, and seemingly everywhere else. But are they just an ugly waste of valuable marketing and promotional space?
Well, clearly they can be a little bit useful, especially for marketers on shoestring budgets - you can generate them quite easily online and stick them on whatever non-digital media you like to allow people to scan them with their smartphones or mobile devices, so they can go straight to a company website - amongst many other things. Even so, the vast majority of the time, the linked sites are not even mobile optimised, or only optimised with certain mobile platforms. What's the point in scanning a QR code if you're going to be sent straight to a rubbish website with absolutely no usability? You're just going to leave it straight away, thus making the QR code completely pointless.

There's a whole lot of potential for marketers who use the QR code in the right way, so I've listed some of my own 'tips' on how to use them properly:

• Give the reader some idea of where they're going - it's completely futile having just a random QR code in the middle of a flyer if nobody knows where it's going to take them. Even a slight indication is better than none. Reassure the reader that they're not scanning something that is potentially harmful, offensive or downright pointless.
• Don't just link them to a company homepage - this is one of the worst things you as a marketer can do when QRing. People aren't going to waste their time in navigating through a big website just to buy things or find out about you. If you're using QR codes to promote a specific product, service or offer, link it directly there.
• Make the code easy to scan - make it big enough to allow all types of phones to scan and process. Some phone cameras may be more responsive or higher definition than others, so make sure you do a bit of research - even if it means showing a few of your mates or colleagues and asking them to try scanning it. 
• Don't be ridiculous - this might be an obvious one, but it one of the most common mistakes of marketers using QR codes. Putting your QR code on your website is one of the most pointless things I've ever seen in my time. Why would people want to scan that s**t when they're already online? Also, putting the code on billboards which are completely out of reach of even the best scanner, placing them on fly-by advertisement, the list of the ridiculous goes on. See the further reading at the end of this post for more QR f**k-ups and complete failures.
• Optimise of mobile platforms - as mentioned, this is a very important consideration if you want to use QR codes effectively. If you can't do it yourself, there are thousands of digital media companies that will do it for you, and the benefits will seriously be worth more than the costs. Optimise it for BB, iOS and Android phones because you don't know just what type of smartphone someone has.
• Make people want to scan it - provide a reason for the customer to physically take out their smartphones and make a fool of themselves by pointing their cameras at a square grid of jibberish code. For example, you might want to promote a product by offering online discounts, or discounts only for people who have scanned the code. Offer prizes to people who scan, by collecting their names and e-mail addresses in a simple mobile data capture form and selecting a winner at random. Free stuff makes people do things, you see!

 One of my favourite uses of the QR code is actually with Subway's Subcard - although the codes on these cards are not actually for scanning by customers, they do help QR code live up to their name, providing a very quick response when they are scanned by staff members. It is quite possible for Subway or any other loyalty card provider to adapt QR codes, allowing users to log straight into their accounts and check their number of points or check for any offers, etc. There I goes again with loyalty cards, please forgive me. QR codes are definitely going to be around for the foreseeable future, that's for sure - but will anyone really do anything groundbreaking or inspiring with them? I personally have my doubts, and can only really see them being used more frequently as a marketing cop-out and without any proper consideration. The potential they have is huge, so opportunities to utilise them shouldn't be squandered by marketers. In the meantime, check out one of my personal favourite creative uses of the QR code, in a recent campaign by Volkswagen:

For further reading, check out this other article:

Funniest QR Code Fails

and for even more QR code geniuses:
WTF QR Codes

Craig The Marketing Student