Case Studies

UPDATE:  August 11, 2011

QRCodes are now being employed by Newspapers to provide value to advertisers and to engage with readers.  “The Mercury cracks the QR code“ Durban’s The Mercury newspaper has embraced the concept of Quick Response (QR) codes and will this weekend launch its first ‘added value offering’ with the Springbok game against Australia as the event to kick its QR campaign into touch.

UPDATE:  July 29, 2011

Pub customers could soon be using their smartphones to check their dish’s food provenance by scanning new “quick response” (QR) codes.

SOURCE:  Punnets of strawberries by fresh produce suppliers Pauleys carry the QR codes that can be read in a similar way to barcodes using a reader downloadable from the internet or mobile application stores.  The service is intended for chefs, who are shown a “meet the grower” story on Pauleys website after scanning the code, but there is scope for adding the codes to menus so customers can also benefit.  “Information is key to all our customers,” said Rachel Sewter, Pauleys marketing manager. “They want to know as much as possible about the produce they’re buying — who grows it, where it’s grown, how it’s grown and the environmental and sustainability credentials of those who supply to us. With the introduction of QR codes on our produce we hope to make it even easier for chefs and diners to obtain this information.  “For pubs, hotels and restaurants and cafes this innovation will help them showcase the British and seasonal produce on their menus. All of which helps them enhance their offering to customers. It’s now even easier for them to find out the story of what they’re buying from field to fork.”  Pauleys is working with other suppliers to make the QR code a feature on other items of fresh produce.

UPDATE July 10, 2011:

In the same way that websites, MySpace URLs, and more recently Facebook pages started appearing in newspaper, TV, and newspapers ads, the public is now witnessing  QR codes appearing in every form of traditional advertisements.

QR codes have been seen on a variety of direct mail pieces, retail clothing tags, movie posters, business cards, billboards, posters and now in Times Square.

Case Study QuickLinks

Direct Mail Campaigns.

Valpak the familiar blue advertising envelope is to have have QR codes on the outside of the envelope and on individual inserts (image below). Over the next two months Valpak will mail more than 80 million households with the QR Codes resolving to mobile pages (image below) providing additional information and sweepstake entry (image below).

Banking and Financial.   Travelers passing through the Denver International Airport with time to kill and a digital device on their hands will be provided with electronic books, crosswords or Sudoku for free, courtesy of FirstBank.  Backlit posters inside the airport, headlined “Free Books,” “Free Crosswords,” and “Free Sudoku” show QR codes linked to a URL where travelers can download 12 classic novels. Crosswords and Sudoku puzzles are also available at the novice, intermediate and expert levels. Those without a QR-enabled smartphone can go online to download the same offerings from their computer.  The campaign has only been running a couple of weeks, but in that time, there have been over 750 downloads. 9% of the downloads have been via QR codes. Downloads take under 30 seconds.  Based on the first week’s results, the most popular books, in order, are Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, and James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. Least popular are Walden, Emma and Don Quixote.  The bank estimates that 7,000 classic novels and puzzles will be given out during the five-month promotion.

Chase Bank Uses QR Code in Homepage Banner.

QR Codes Are Mobile Gateway for Bank Marketers.

Real Estate.   QR Codes & Real Estate Marketing,   QR Codes for Real Estate   Local realtors were among the first to use QR Codes by placing them on ‘For Sale’ signs, now the big brands are experimenting with them. Ads from high-end realtor Sotheby’s International are appearing today in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times with a QR Code (image below).  The QR Code resolves to a mobile site from which the user can continue their property search from their mobile device. Sotheby’s is using Smarter Agent’s mobile platform.

Grocery and Consumer Goods.   Smartphone scan codes a strong tool for Valley ag

QR Codes in the wild – Bulmers Cider QR code Leads You to Experimental Test

Best Buy and Home Depot currently using QR codes

Wine QRCodes.   Groupe Val d’Orbieu

Retail Clothing:  Miss Me bolsters products sales via mobile bar codes.

Pharmaceutical.   How Quick Response codes can help pharma engage with patients.

QR Codes: Why All Pharmacies & Industry Need to Use Them.

Medical.    Legal.   Political.

Cracking the Code

“The retail industry is going bonkers over quick response (QR) codes — those square, two-dimensional barcodes resembling puzzles and mazes that give customers instant interactive access to product information through their smartphones.  “If you can provide not only information but also more of an entertaining experience as you dial into that product information, then that will be more captivating to a consumer,” says Don Eames, vice president, general manager of retail stores for Merrimack, N.H.-based specialty lifestyle retailer Brookstone.  QR barcodes have been used in Japan, where smartphone adoption has been more robust than in the United States, since the early 2000s. But as U.S. smartphone usage has exploded over the past few years, so, too has recognition of QR codes.

In retail stores QR codes can be attached to price tags, but marketers and advertisers are finding more innovative ways to display them to attract attention to their brands, such as on billboards, business cards, invoices, flyers and T-shirts. QR codes are showing up on product pages in catalogs and brochures, and retailers are even placing them in storefront windows to lure after-hours passers-by.  Once customers are engaged by capturing the image with a smartphone camera, QR codes interact with shoppers through dedicated video, audio, images and text, offering readily available content such as product ratings, specifications, demos and expert advice, consumer reviews and how-to guides.  “QR codes are just another way for brands to connect to and engage with their target audiences,” says Mark Lopez, digital director at Two West, a Kansas City company that helps brands resonate with shoppers. “They [customers] are already interested in the product; it’s really how you extend that interest and how you engage the user with your brand in a new and different way.”

Closing the gap
Retail marketers see QR codes as a game-changing opportunity to tighten the loop between consumer branding and point of sale. “Customers are using the Internet today to get information about products before they make the purchase,” Eames says. “If you can close that gap from sitting in your house and gathering information to doing it in the store, that’s good for everybody.”  Brookstone, which operates more than 300 retail stores in high-traffic regional shopping malls and airports in the United States and Puerto Rico, began a test of QR code usage in 30 of its New York City-area stores, including its high-profile Rockefeller Center location.  The test is going so well that Brookstone plans to roll out QR codes into all its stores during the third quarter of this year, Eames says.  Brookstone’s Rockefeller Center store promotes the test in the store’s windows via big-screen TVs that mimic the Apple iPhone, whose 2007 introduction is widely credited with spurring U.S. demand for smartphone devices. The big screens show consumers what they will see when they scan a code, Eames says.

Mobio Identity Systems, a Vancouver identity management company specializing in mobile commerce and mobile marketing applications, surveyed QR code usage and found that growth in global QR code scanning activity — 4,549 percent — has been astronomical since the first quarter of 2010.  In March, The Home Depot launched a national communications strategy utilizing QR codes in its nearly 2,300 stores, on signage and in direct mail releases. The Home Depot will have the capability to edit the codes dynamically as new content is available. In turn, QR scans will give the chain invaluable customer demographic and shopping tendency insight.  George Hoffman, president of ClikGenie, a Kernersville, N.C., firm that works with retail organizations on in-store QR code management and delivery, says major retailers and other companies are adopting QR codes as a central marketing tool for a good reason: convergence.  “QR codes are an easy pathway to get you to more information,” he says. “What really makes people want to use it is that the information they are led to can be easily accessed quickly today. They don’t want to wait two minutes to get a download of an image or video.”

Here are some creative suggestions being utilized or strategized for use in business campaigns:

1. QR Codes on business cards.   Rather than overload a business card with all of your contact info employees can include the bare minimum on the card f then create a QR code that leads people to their mobile landing page with their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Plaxo, Yelp, FourSqure, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Whrrl, and MySpace profiles.

2. Labeling. Restaurant patrons are now enjoying wine from vineyards with QR codes on the bottle.   The scan it and that takes them to a mobile site where they can learn more about the wine, the vineyard, and links to where they can buy a case for delivery … all before the check comes to the table.

3. Storefront displays.  Few retail businesses are open 24/7 but can now create a Shop Online Now!  Placing a QR code in their storefront window with a quick scan and the business has turned a potential lost sale into an online customer who’s going to share a lot more of their contact information with the business.

4. Promotions, discounts and giveaways. Businesses who want to encourage patronage from the iPhone and Android devices, can create discounts that are specific to unique QR codes and can give scanners in store credits against future purchases as a reward for scanning and purchasing something online with their SmartPhone.

5. Laptop stickers. College students are now encouraging a QR sticker on their laptop with their vCard or website on the laptop, making it easier for other geeks to connect when they are at the local coffee shop.

6. T-shirts. Putting QR codes on branded t-shirts and encouraging the wearing of them at a public event like a ballgame, street fair or campaign stop has been very successful. For more engagement from the crowd, some brands have put different messages on the shirts, so people take more scans of more of the company’s  codes.

7. Use QR codes to get Likes and Follows.  Brands can create mobile-friendly landing pages from the QRCode scan with Facebook like buttons or lead them to their Twitter page for a quick follow.

8. Supplement retail spaces.  Hardware stores have linked to how-to videos on YouTube concerning how to use specific power tools. Groceries have linked to pages that talk about how their products were sourced, and perhaps to interviews of the farmers who grew the food.