QR Codes - The future of print advertising

It's known as a QR code or "Quick Response" code and is a form of 2D barcode that was created by Denso Wave, a subsidiary of the Toyota Corporation as a way of tracking car parts in industrial manufacturing. So how did QR codes make their way from the manufacturing process to become a tool heralding the dawn of a new era of advertising we see today?

In early 2000 the Japan carrier DoCoMo wanted a way of enabling customers to quickly and easily enter the details from a business card into a phones contact list. With the rise of camera phones the idea of taking a picture of the card to enter the details automatically was conceived and code reading software for the mobile platform was born.

Since their launch in Japan late 2003 QR codes have seen phenomenal growth, with QR code readers now installed on virtually all handsets and a recent survey citing a 96% recognition rate of the QR symbol amongst the Japanese consumer. In Japan they are used everywhere and on everything from finding out the next bus time to linking to a trailer of a movie and even finding out the history of a food production from farmer to supermarket, including such things a soil quality and region! Several Australian manufacturers who export to Japan have started to include QR codes on their packaging linking to product related mobile sites, including Surfboard Company TBD12 and coffee company Zentveld’s Estate.

There are many examples internationally of campaigns that have successfully incorporated the use of Barcodes including recent examples in the UK with Fox incorporating them on billboards in a major over-the-line campaign with 28 Weeks Later and The Sun newspapers creating an 8 page sponsored lift-out with brands such as Asahi, Ladbrokes and Fox. In San-Francisco restaurants in partnership with City Search have placed codes in their window linking to reviews. In France the mobile operators have banded together to create a unanimous standard and have now put out RFIP’s for code vendor solutions. Axel Springer the German equivalent of News Corp has been using QR codes in Welt Kompakt, their version of MX since November 2007.

Locally QMCODES has been involved with a number of successful private trials including The Vice magazine annual 2007 party with Fosters and Rockstar. We are also currently in discussion with a number of publishers to incorporate codes into the overall user experience and you can expect to see some new campaigns going live late this year.

Our trials and extensive experience have shown that for a successful campaign involving codes it is critical that brands fully understand the importance of education and the user experience from beginning to end. Just inserting a code into a piece of creative may potentially result in good PR but if no thought is given to the overall user experience it will be a very poor execution.

So what does all of this actually mean for advertisers? QR codes promise a new era of interactive media where every print medium becomes an instant gateway to additional rich content. Brands spend a vast amount of money on research to understand where their target audience resides, QR codes have the ability to allow advertisers to finally understand which half of their ad spend is actually working whilst maximising the returns or existing media channels.

To find out more or to discuss how QMCODES can work for you, email us at info@qmcodes.com

Opinion offered by Antony McGregor Dey, CEO of QM Codes www.QMCODES.com