The topic of QR codes came up at a recent workshop I attended. Some of the participants suggested that implementing campaigns with QR codes suggested it improved perceptions that the brand was ‘cutting edge’ even if the QR code was hardly ever used. The others laughed at lack of utility QR codes and how useless they are.

Both are wrong.

QR codes have unfairly been derided in the comms world. They were conceived by a Toyota subsidiary for industrial inventory management and have been successfully used to track automobile parts for over a decade. QR codes are neither innovative or useless in their original context, nor are they inherently innovative or useless in a marketing context.

The failure of QR codes in the comms world has been by the marketers, not the technology. A QR code is not a compelling innovation. It’s not an innovation innately suited to advertising strategy. It’s certainly not an innovation likely to generate excitement in and by itself.

It’s a barcode.

There are some great examples of QR codes being effectively implemented and improving the user experience, such as Tesco and the Wealie app. What connects these examples is that the QR codes have been implemented in situations where users are not required to change their behaviour. In South Korea, Tesco has a fake supermarket “shelf and product” interface for mobile shopping, with QR codes attached for the scanning of products to be added to carts. Wealie takes the usual ‘loyalty’ card system and removes the annoying stamp and card system. In these contexts, QR codes actually represent a valuable proposition. Most importantly, the QR code is essentially a mechanism for streamlining an existing behaviour, and not the strategy that underpins the experience itself. 

Putting a QR code on outdoor and print ads asks users to change their behaviour. People aren’t used to stopping at a magazine ad, pulling out their phones, scanning a barcode etc. That’s a both an effort and a cognitive behavioural barrier to overcome. Furthermore, early marketing adopters regularly used QR codes to link through Youtube videos in lieu of any other compelling reason to include a QR code (to improve perceptions of brands as innovative). This situation undoubtedly requires more effort, breaking the flow of a behavioural pattern, than makes the “payoff” worthwhile.

Providing access to a website or video isn’t exciting - URLs can do that, and there’s been no significant demand by consumers for a new technology to replace URLs. What can QR do? Take an existing experience and make it better by leveraging that QR can offer – better tracking, more portable, ability to store (lots of) information, quick access to that information etc. 

Unfortunately, QR codes now have the stigma of being a low value proposition. They’re a joke, best summarised by this tumblr. Wven a useful, innovative QR campaign has the deck stacked against it thanks to the ghosts of hundreds or poorly conceived earlier QR campaigns. If your campaign does succeed it will be because of the value it adds for the user – not because of the novelty in using QR. And if doesn’t, don’t blame the technology. Or the user.

I posted the bottom video a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fantastic piece of comms from Mercedes. I said:

[This ad] took the difficult task of communicating an abstract innovation and makes it salient in very playful and engaging way without diminishing the value of the innovation. Great idea and great execution. 

I’m posting it again to compare it to the top ad from HTC, which I saw today. Both are advertisements for new product innovations that improve the product in (largely) invisible ways, but the strategy behind and execution of each ad couldn’t be more different. It’s a great example of comms appealing to reason vs appealing to emotion - and you surely won’t be surprise to learn that the latter is more successful.

The problem that both ads faced is how to sell an innovation that is largely embodied in the process when the output of that process can’t really be shown (close ups of a new phone casing or engine won’t really cut it). In response to this challenge, HTC has seemingly said, “we can’t show the outcome of this process itself so we’ll explain it to them - let’s get technical!” Mercedes, on the other hand, said, “we have to figure out a way to visualise this outcome - let’s get creative!”

The HTC tries to wow you with how complex the process is, not the outcome. For an ad that starts out by labelling the company customer-centric, it spends a lot more time telling the audience how complex this innovation is and not much about how this actually impacts their lives. In fact, it has this to say about the outcome: “Does your phone really need the same technology used by NASA for satellites? Maybe not.” So it’s asking you to get excited about an engineering process that is really advanced, the outcome of which will totally over-serve your needs. By the end, it’s hardly offering a valuable proposition for consumers.

Added to that is the fact that the product is barely seen, and the only people the ad shows as being excited are slightly awkward product engineers with imperfect English (one of whom can’t maintain eye contact with the interviewer or camera). It’s an ad that doubles down on scientific discourse as a selling point at the expense of social proof. It tries really hard to tell you why this innovation is exciting without actually showing you why – almost like trying to sell my oxygen by having scientists explain photosynthesis without conveying any tangible, valuable benefits.

Mercedes is the total opposite. It doesn’t try to explain anything, instead it offers up a visual metaphor, triggering the visual part of my brain and creating much stronger associations with the product. Mercedes accepts the limitations of this visual metaphor, but they don’t feel the need to chip away at the impact with technical qualifications or explanations – it just lets it do its thing.

Add to that the much better choice of music and the fact that it shows the “product” out in the open, interacting with crowds of people who are getting excited, and you have an add that’s a lot more emotionally compelling with a lot stronger social proof.

Mercedes appreciated that an idea is best communicated in a simple, engaging form that wisely trades off some of the undoubtedly impressive mechanics behind its new fuel cell for a stronger impact. HTC didn’t get it. I’d like to say that’s because each ad is going for different markets, but both seem to be geared toward the broader consumer market. I can only put the complete failure of the former down to poor strategy and poor execution.

NPR’s Planet Money jump on the ‘minimalist movie poster’ bandwagon.

Almost every vinyl record I’ve purchased in the past two years has comes with a free high-quality digital download. Why don’t physical books do the same? Should they?

Wow. Took the difficult task of communicating an abstract innovation and makes it salient in very playful and engaging way without diminishing the value of the innovation. Great idea and great execution. (HT @voriol)

yrxsxsw:

According to the panel presiding over ‘Brand as Pattern,’ interaction designers are the next generation of brand stewards. Yes, interaction. Brands are no long fixed entities. Brands areban interface to user experience.

Example: Continental meets United. What a bad bad romance it’s been….

The law of unintended consequences is a powerful force. For instance, see this example, pulled from a response on Quora thread “Why do studios re-write scripts after buying them?”

It is to the advantage of subsequent writers to change as much as possible.  I have experienced this from both sides, having had my original scripts rewritten, and having been hired to re-write other writers’ work.  In order to get credit on a movie, a writer must have changed at least 50% of an original screenplay.  Otherwise, he or she may work months or years on a film and get no credit what-so-ever.  The guy who brings the director his coffee gets credit, but the script doctor who wrote 40% of the script does not.  Without credit, the writer is effectively anonymous - no acclaim, no boost to his career, no awards, no residuals on DVD sales, nothing.  As a result, many writers try to  re-invent the script - changing major characters, plot structure, and theme - in order to win credit.

This rule was probably created to protect the original writer by removing the situation wherein someone changes a few passages of dialogue and then gets a co-writing credit. While I fully accept that a screenplay is never sold and made “as is,” but the actual outcome of this rule seems have removed the incentive for making too little/unnecessary changes and replaced it with the incentive to do much, much more.

Perhaps screenwriters are happier with this outcome. I’m not one and I don’t know any so can’t say. I just thought it was interesting take on this rule. 

Another interesting take on the question appears further down the page:

[M]illions of drill owners buy tens of millions of quarter inch drill bits, even though none of them want to own a quarter inch drill bit. What they want are quarter inch holes… Metaphorically, the scripts are like giant drill bits that provide studios with enormous holes to pour tens of millions of dollars into.

(As a side note, one of my fav blogs Asymco has been looking into the economics of Hollywood a bit lately and it’s quite interesting).