The start of a new quarter is always a good time to take a step back and reflect on the latest developments in the industry. Today is no exception, as we’ve hand-picked the best and most innovative QR Code campaigns from the 2nd Quarter, 2012.  It’s fantastic to see examples from all over the globe, and from a variety of industries.  Kudos to these marketers for creating amazing customer experiences using this dynamic technology!

Company: Procter & Gamble
Industry: Consumer Goods

A clever blend of m-commerce, social media and fun: PGMobile used shopping trucks with QR Codes on the side to allow New Yorkers to purchase Procter & Gamble products for home delivery. The trucks locations were tweeted by @PGMobile and shoppers could tweet requests to bring the trucks right to their office or apartment block. Learn more about it here.

Company: Coca Cola
Industry: Beverage

To promote the popular EURO 2012 Tournament, Coca Cola used ScanLife powered QR Codes on millions of packages throughout Spain. The codes connected users to a mobile series of exclusive videos about the competition and drove downloads of the ‘SmileWorld’ app, Coke’s new mobile social network. Never before has a major brand used ScanLife on a scale quite like this! Find out more here.

Company: Emart
Industry: Retail

Emart, the Walmart of Korea, wanted to launch a lunch time promotion. They came up with the idea of a QR Code, in which its shadow rotates according to the time of the day – like a sundial. As a result, the QR Code only worked from 12pm to 1 pm. Once scanned, the code activated a promotion on Emart’s m-commerce website or in stores. Watch the video below for more:

Company: Americanino
Industry: Apparel

Americanino, a Chilean fashion brand created a pop-up QR Code event which ‘hypnotized’ young consumers and tried to get them to strip off in public. Those who were bold enough to do so were rewarded with a free Americanino outfit. Check out the video to learn more:

Company: Rockport
Industry: Footwear

Rockport used QR Codes during an outdoor event involving a box display with people hanging off the edges to show the new line of shoes. The displayed featured codes on the sides that took users to a mobile optimized landing page where they could learn more about the product. Users could then tap to buy the shoes on Rockport’s mobile site. But there’s more…

Company: Volkswagen
Industry: Automotive

Volkswagen recently launched a QR code campaign to promote its line of commercial vans – Crafter. The campaign featured a huge structure with a QR Code made with actual boxes of oranges. When people scanned it, they would be directed to a video of how those boxes would fit inside a Crafter. Thanks to this promotion, Crafter increased brand awareness by 224%  and sales by 70%. See the video below for more:

Company: Handy
Industry: Hospitality

Handy, a US-based seafood processor, enabled restaurant owners to enter a 6 digit lot number found on packaging into a trace register widget on the Handy website. They could then download a QR Code for adding to the restaurant menu. Customers would scan the code to follow the fish’s journey from catch to plate. Discover more here.

Company: Budweiser
Industry: Alcoholic Beverage

Global beer brand Budweiser unveiled its new mobile “Track Your Bud” marketing initiative. The campaign integrated QR Codes into producing packaging, allowing consumers to track their specific beer’s history back to one of the 12 American Budweiser breweries. Thirsty for more? Read here.

Company: Axe
Industry: Consumer Goods

As part of a new risqué campaign for Axe Body Spray, the most popular bars and discos in Puerto Rico were given virtual peepholes, i.e. QR Codes, which let men to peek into the girls bathroom. The codes resolved to a set of steamy videos and even even steamier clips if shared on Facebook. The results were pretty spectacular. “Peep” the video below for more:

Company: Turquoise Cottage
Industry: Hospitality / Entertainment

Knowing that patrons typically go out drinking for about five hours, Turquoise Cottage, a bar/restaurant in India, created the “Buddy Stamp” to keep the night both safe and fun. The stamp was comprised of a QR Code that users could scan at various times throughout the night. Now here’s the best part – consumers were delivered different content depending on the time of a scan. A wonderful example of dynamic marketing! Watch the video below for more:

Inspired? So are we. For more information on how to leverage mobile engagement, join our Linkedin group “Exchanging Smarter Ideas on Mobile Engagement“, or check out our website, or simply contact us.

Due to the enormous growth of mobile barcode technology, thousands of marketers are turning to QR codes to engage with their audience. While great news, we’ve found that many codes are providing a poor user experience simply because the codes were published incorrectly. Some codes are not scanning at all, making them useless and discouraging to potential customers. 

As a perfect example of “when QR codes go wrong”, we were sent a recent issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Inside just one section alone, we spotted three different cases where each of the marketers published a QR code that didn’t even work!

To help you avoid this issue, let’s take a quick look at what these particular codes did wrong;

- Lack of Quiet Space: Every QR Code should be surrounded by at least 2 module sizes of ”quiet” or “white” space (modules are the tiny black squares within the code).  The code below lacked this requirement, and was unable to scan as a result.  

- Too Much Density: It’s critical to ensure that your code isn’t too dense. Density becomes a concern when your code includes lots of data and is shrunk down to a smaller size. The code gets too cluttered in a small amount of space, which makes it more difficult or in this case, impossible to read.   

- Poor Dimensions: A QR code has to be square. It cannot be circular, triangular, or anything in between. Square or bust, period.

All of these issues are common risks when using free generators because you lack consistency and quality control over your codes.

Just remember, whatever code generator you choose, please, please (please) test it first across several apps and devices. Merely one bad user experience can turn a customer off QR codes forever!

So consider these tips as step 1-A of “QR Codes 101”, as the single most important thing to remember is “does the code work?”

For the past few weeks, we have been Beta testing our latest code action, the OS Detection code.  This is our latest example of our Premium Codes, that use the analytics from mobile user traffic in real time to deliver dynamic and relevant content.  In this case, the code detects the OS (operating system) of the mobile device scanning the code, and redirects to content the code publishers choose to show. 

This works with both the ScanLife app, and any other standard QR Code reader.

Of course, the best application for this code, is to get a mobile application!  Many brands and publishers have apps for iPhone, Android, and maybe BlackBerry.  A single OS Detection code can be created for all of the leading operating systems, and there is even a default landing page in case you have an app for two of these, but not the others.

Here’s a video showing how the same code goes to different app stores based on the device – Android and iPhone:

Here’s a video that shows how easy it is to do this with a ScanLife Business account:

This takes minutes to set up, and you don’t have to bother with building any landing pages or investing in extra mobile detection systems. You just plug in the URLs, and you’re done!

Here’s a code to try it yourself:

The mobile barcode space is moving very quickly, and it’s exciting to see marketers and users embrace the technology.  Ads are popping up right and left with QR codes, many of them powered by ScanLife.

But, with growth comes growing pains which we try to help our users  avoid.  One feature our system offers is the ability to change the code content whenever you want.  So if you have to print the code before your website is ready, you just log in, edit and everything is updated.  This also comes in handy if you happened to make a mistake on the content you entered.

If you use other “non managed” or “direct” code generators, you cannot change what is embedded in that code.  So you have to be very sure it’s right before you save it, and before you print it.

Unfortunately, one marketer discovered this issue the hard way.  We don’t want to pick on anyone, but it’s just a good example of what can go wrong.  The below Onstar ad ran on the back of Entertainment Weekly.  They used a direct code which has one major issue – it’s missing a backslash after the http header.  Therefore, many code reading apps (including ScanLife) do not recognize this as an actual URL so the website cannot even be launched!

Code from Onstar Ad

This technology is really very simple, but things can go wrong.  We hope that examples like this will quickly become distant memories, as everyone becomes experts!