Let’s be honest, outside of agency walls the QR code has never taken off. The idea is great – add code to ad, everyone who sees it gets as excited as us and in a mad scramble they grab their smartphones, hover them over and are treated to a world beyond their wildest dreams that an ad could ever offer. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe of the advertising world if you will. Not only that, but they will also share it with their friends, their friends will share it with their friends, their friends will share it with their friends, their….. well I think you get my drift. Failing that, at least they might be able to engage with the brand in some mobile coupon offer that they will be forever thankful to the brand for giving them.
The reality is the average consumer goes a little like this: ‘what the f*ck is that weird bar code thing on that ad?’
The problem isn’t the QR code function; it’s the lack of awareness, and perhaps interest, of the viewing public. Ask yourself this – how many brands would you go out of your way to, not just notice and read their ads, but make the effort to find out even more information about them? People still say ‘yeah but they’re huge in Asia’. That may be the case but us Brits tend to be a lazy nation, it would take something pretty special, or rewarding, to make us go out of our way to actively engage with an advert. Especially through a medium over half of us don’t even know exists. And there lies the problem; we need a mass reach advertising campaign to advertise that QR codes advertise for advertisers. Hmmm.
Now there are a few developments of the general QR code function that are getting me excited. The Blippar app offers exciting, endless creative solutions. The marmite example springs to mind - you hover your smartphone in front of the actual product and are presented with various recipes. Cadburys have implemented it on to chocolate bars with interactive games you can play on your smartphone by hovering it over the wrapper. The opportunities are endless and idea sessions on the platform are sure to bring up many creative ideas that are easy to keep on brand. These will all make an exciting client presentation and it is easy to get the Brand Manager excited – but to get their autograph on the plan is going to take more than a few fancy creative ideas. They need to know that people apart from media and advertising professionals know the app exists. Now I hope that Blippar doesn’t suffer the same fate as the QR code.
Another one to keep an eye on in 2012 is Yahoo’s television tagging app ‘IntoNow’. I suppose the best way to describe it is ‘like Shazam for TV’. By holding your smartphone or tablet device up in front of the TV it tags live and time-shifted broadcast television content, highlights related content, and recommends television shows and movies based on your tagging behaviours and preferences. The app’s most compelling feature, however, is its ability to discover and feature real-time content — in the form of tweets, news headlines or play-by-play sports updates — related to what the user is watching. I understand this has been a pretty big hit in the US, and with it being released in the UK any time now, it is sure to bring up conversations on how we as advertisers can make the most of it.
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