Tim Bennett’s blog – Electron Soup

A QR Code for electronsoup.net

Take a look at this graphic. Chances are you will be seeing a lot more of these in Australia in the near future. This is a Quick Response or ‘QR’ code.

What is a QR code?

Like an ordinary barcode, the QR code encodes information, but using a two-dimensional matrix instead of a linear one. So instead of encoding a 13 digit number (as the European Article Number does), a QR code can encode arbitrarily large amounts of data, like website URLs or business card details.

The QR code pictured here, for instance, encodes the URL for this website.

What is a QR code for?

“QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that a user might need information about. A user having a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL.” (Wikipedia)

Advertisers are completely turned on by the possibility of using QR codes to run multimedia campaigns across print, outdoor and online. With the advent of Telstra providing QR code software on its new phones, and with mobile web browsing becoming ever more popular, advertisers are mulling over the possible uses for these codes, for instance:

• Lowering the barrier to responding: a QR code can launch a website where a promotion’s next phase begins (for instance providing an email address or phone number for a mailing list or competition). This is much easier than requiring a user to key in a URL, and doesn’t charge the user the cost of a text message.
• Judging the efficacy of advertisements without needing audience research: the number of hits to promotional landing pages reveals exactly how many people took the promotion’s desired next step. Customized landing pages can also reveal whether print, billboards, bus shelters or another medium is giving a return on investment.

What unexpected uses may crop up?

In my opinion, the most interesting part of any technology are the fringe and unintended uses people find for it. Anyone can generate a QR code at several websites, such as Kaywa QR-Code. I can already imagine activists printing up QR codes to stick onto corporate advertising as a method of quietly hijacking their messages – doubly effective when the brand’s intended customers will be the main audience for these guerrilla QR codes.

I can also foresee users learning how to alter QR codes to change an encoded URL – imagine the effect on a corporate advertising campaign if altering one or two pixels sends customers from (for example) drinkcoke.com to a goatse-style site set up at drinjcoke.com.

In summary, advertisers are hailing the QR code as a revolutionary new way to improve consumer engagement with their brands. But with the tools and techonology for encoding and decoding QR codes freely available, the community may well come up with some very interesting new uses for the technology.