QR Codes For Competitions
Since I started reading and writing about QR codes I am seeing them more and more in all kinds of places. A couple of weeks ago the Beer Store which happens to be a government run business in Canada was doing a contest promotion using QR codes. They had a 4 page colour flyer made up with QR codes bringing you to the contest page as well as QR codes promoting some local breweries. It was exciting to see a local large scale competition.
Scanning the QR Codes
What did we do? We got out our smart phones and scanned the QR codes of course. What did we find?! The first one that lead to the competition page was a dead link! The second one lead to a dead link! The third one lead to a dead link! And the fourth one lead to a dead link! How many people had the same user experience? I am sure there were more than just myself. There are a lot of beer drinkers who scan the beer flyers with their mobile devices when they come with prizes to be won. These flyers went out all over the city as an insert in the free daily news. They had to pay to be distributed in this paper. What a waste of money. What a wasted viral opportunity.
There were also QR codes in front of images of the different beer brands brewed in local micro breweries. The QR codes could be scanned to book a guided tour at the individual breweries. When we scanned them we found that the QR codes were placed in front of the wrong beer cans, thus bringing us to the wrong breweries. In fact one of the QR codes was a duplicate. It is a good thing these breweries did not pay for this advertising. I am sure if I did and the link went to one of my competitors sites I would not be too pleased.
Beware of the QR Code Bandwagon
There are a few lessons to be learned here but I will name the ones I feel are most important. The first one being is to be sure to check and double check all links. You only have one chance. People are not going to try again tomorrow when they already went to a dead link. You do not want to miss this opportunity after you have invested the resources into executing a campaign.
The mix up of images with an inaccurate QR codes lined up got me thinking from a layout specialists point of view. QR codes all seem to look the same to the naked eye so this second verification is especially important at this point as well.
Technology is changing very rapidly. All the new tools are exciting. They have reduced time lines and cut costs immensely. BUT we still need to be careful when we jump on the bandwagon. Things may seem easy to execute so we get into the DIY mentality. They are also easy to screw up. This can end up costing a lot more than if the time and money were invested in getting it done correctly the first time around. Sometimes that means using someone with more experience.
Thanks for reading
Rebecca Happy~The Connector Gal
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