QR Code Example to Non-Mobile Web
Yes it’s a dramatic title but the widespread muscle-memory misuse of QR codes by an overwhelming majority of advertisers in print is like a slow death to those of us who live & breath mobile. Seems like every time I pick up a newspaper, a magazine or walk by any printed material there is a QR code – starring at me, poking at me, taunting me to scan it. After all, I should scan it; I’m in mobile! As I pull out my phone and slide it ‘on’, and slowly move my finger towards the QR scanning app there is a part of me that braces for disappointment. It brings back memories of going to Toys R Us as a kid hoping that as we walk by the shiny bikes and I ask my parents for a bike that today they would say yes. . . as I scan this QR code I’m hoping that I’ll be interacting with a mobile optimized landing page with features that I can interact with. Sadly, just as when I was a kid, I didn’t get the experience of that shiny bike but instead new diapers. And as I scan yet another QR code, the experience is similar to what a diaper is made to hold – shit.
I wonder if it’s the advertiser, their agency or the pesky ad-sales rep at the publication who didn’t think to warn the advertiser before they unleash these terrible experiences onto the world. If a consumer is made to use his mobile device to gain information about your brand, and when he uses his mobile device to participate in a mobile tactic (the QR code) then he should get a – duh! – mobile experience! He doesn’t want to zoom and scroll all over the crap experience you gave him. He doesn’t want to try and figure out where on your massive site he should be looking as he browses on the 4 inch screen. And yes, he will hate on your brand for making him go through this frustration!
Overall there is a tear in the thin strategic fabric. There is a gap in knowledge about how to use the QR tactic properly and give the consumer a complete mobile experience. This gap sometimes extends to ‘mobile’ as a whole. Mobile encompasses many tactical solutions such as QR, AR, Mobile Web, Apps, SMS, etc and each tactic should be thought through not only for the mobile experience but also how to harmoniously have it work with other digital and traditional strategies.
I’m done with scanning QR codes. Oh, and when NFS hits the streets the same rule applies – give the consumer on mobile a mobile experience not a desktop one!