QR Codes: The Next Big Thing?

Clients have been asking me about QR codes. They are the next big thing, or so I am led to believe.

As a marketer, we've always got two options when it comes to the next big thing: Ignore it until it becomes too big to ignore or jump right in, play with it, experiment with it and maybe get it right (or very badly wrong).

As a consumer, I've downloaded the QR app to my smartphone. And used it. Twice. The second time it just annoyed me as the QR code was just too small to snap.

You see, all these QR codes on posters are all very well but how many marketers are sticking them up there without really giving them much thought? Quite a lot I would say.

That's why there are QR codes appearing on billboards (really? seriously?) and in magazines (which I always read with my mobile phone in my hand, of course) and on business cards (because it wouldn't be the height of rudeness to zap someone's QR code while still talking to them face to face at an event).

In fact, I see the marketing industry making use of this brand new, exciting (and it is exciting) technology in a rather dull and everyday way. Trying to fit it into their existing media. Deploying very little imagination in the process. Very few are geniunely using this technology to combine customer's needs with their marketing objectives. In fact, I can think of only one campaign I've seen to date that actually achieves this dual purpose, and with sophisticated finesse.

Tesco. In Korea.

Their virtual subway store, aside from being genius in its simplicity, has truly put the use ofthe QR code at the heart of the campaign. The marketing part of the campaign is, quite simply, the delivery mechanism. The PR value generated is incredible. In fact it's almost the inverse of other marketers' approaches to using QR codes.

It's engaging, it's effective, it's interactive and, over and above everything else, it's useful. For both the business and the consumer.

So until we can do something useful and effective with a QR code for a client, we'll be resisting the urge to stick them on posters and business cards. Just because.