This post is all about Quick Response (QR) codes, those funny little mosaics you can see popping up everywhere. A recent article in the Economist highlighted the impact QR Codes are having on the consumer marketplace.
To give a little history, QR codes were invented by Toyota in Japan way back in 1994 as a replacement for standard bar codes. This is because of the amount of information they can store, whether it is alpha, numeric, binary, or virtually any other data type. Bar codes have served well to visually tag an item or product for a computer to read, but much like the storage difference between binary and digital, the amount of information that can be recorded in a QR code is superior to the standard bar code. This is because QR codes are 2 dimensional. QR codes can also be read even if damaged thanks to built-in data duplication and error correction. If you haven't used them, I can say that this is a pretty handy feature. Technology has a tendency to be, shall we say, fragile, but QR codes read easily into many different types of devices.
The complexity of the QR code also appeals to marketing professionals. Coupled with the prevalence of smartphones with cameras, a simple app can read a code, then send the user to a website, or display information about the business. This is why these codes seem to be popping up everywhere - cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, even in the grocery store aisle. Some of the basic ones will just take a customer to a website, but according to the article, this isn't enough. The most successful marketing campaigns, include coupons (very popular in Japan), contain some sort of app, allow entry into contests, or even allow participation in a poll. A bonus for companies is that it is easy to track their success by simply counting the number of QR code hits received.
They don't need to be used in business, either. In fact, the Nintendo 3DS includes QR reading software, allowing companies to spur interest in their games by making additional content available through QR codes. Companies can lengthen the time the game stays at the forefront of the gaming community by spacing out this new content, thereby increasing sales. QR codes can also add a social aspect to games by letting players share their gaming experience by creating a code to share with others by posting them on the internet.
The QR code's success is intertwined with the proliferation of smartphones, and they have added a level of interaction with the real world that wasn't there only a few years ago. The marketing buzz around QR codes shows no signs of slowing down, and in the next post we'll see how smartphones, sometimes using QR code technology, are forcing brick-and-mortar stores to compete online.
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