Do you use QR codes?
Out of context: Reply #29
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- chalk0
^ Yes, I stand by that. If you have to attach a QR code to a direct mail piece, then you're not getting good analytics, you're getting the same analytical measurements you had before, through a different medium. What's the difference between a smartphone activating a QR code, and a person going to the web on their computer to visit the link in your direct mail piece? Nothing. It's just more marketing junk that has wafer-thin traction, which is enough for one person to say, "Everyone else is doing it, so why aren't I?" It's the used car salesman mentality. "Omg, my competition is using flashing yellow text on red backgrounds and screaming in their commercials, so it must be working for them!!"
I also don't think QR codes are going to "save" anything as you so righteously projected. It's just another digital fad in the US, in my opinion—a temporary Facebook-esque tool for marketing more crap to consumers. Don't get me wrong, I support the idea of testing out "emerging" technologies, but the average US consumer is too slow to adopt QR codes. By the time it has real traction (whatever the hell that is), the fad will be over. Your savvy big city demographic is going to adopt, of course, but the level of usage and interest in rural areas is probably laughable. I don't have any figures on that. Figures on this kind of thing are laughable anyway.
To me, the QR code fad in the US is simply "marketeers" glomming onto something that they read about in SmartCEO Magazine or OMMA Magazine. People always mention that my demographic is the early adopters and we are all using it, etc etc. Truth be told, I think that my generation is certainly the adoption circle, but I have never scanned a single QR code, because I am well aware that it's dumb.