We had a meeting the other day at the excellent Mall pub overlooking some greenery in Clifton. They’ve got a good selection of real ales, decent food and friendly staff. Perusing the range of beer pumps, I witnessed yet another pointless application of the omnipresent QR Code.
Adorning the beer punp label, in prime position, I felt compelled to give it a scan to see what happened. I was hoping for some sort of amusing or informative mobile website, something vaguely engaging perhaps. What I got was predictably mundane. I was taken off to The Thornbridge Brewery website which wasn’t mobile optimised and pretty much unusable on my Iphone. What on earth was the thinking behind this I wonder?
The use of QR codes is going to have to mature or they risk becoming a mobile marketing fad, a curiosity that looked like it might have had some potential but noone could quite work out what it was. One of their many down sides is just how cumbersome and clunky they are to use. You need a phone with a decent camera that’s up to the job of close focusing. You’ve then got to have a steady hand to scan the thing. In most circumstances it would be quicker just to type the URL directly into your browser or send off a text to a short code to receive a link back by text.
Mobile Marketing Genius
For delightful bonkersness, you’d have a job to beat what David Boddington at mobile marketing agency Movement discovered. A QR code on the roof, yes the ROOF of a London cab. Just genius. Presumably the target market is helicopter pilots with a free couple of minutes.
Bad implementation of QR codes used to annoy me but now I’m rather enjoying just how pointless and silly most of them are. Perhaps we could start a competition with a prize for the most ridiculous use of them. Entries to info@textmarketer.co.uk.
If you’d like to discuss your mobile marketing strategy and whether a QR code might deserve a place in your plans (unlikely), please feel free to give us a call or drop us a line. All our details are on our contacts page.