4Music Using QR Code on TV advertising… you’re doing it wrong!

Posted on July 9, 2011 by admin No Comments

After an enjoyable saturday morning out to the local art market with my wife and daughter, we sit down and watch a bit More4. Having lunch and up pops and advert for for the Channel 4 produced music channel 4Music. I don’t know what the advert was specifically, as I was too busy eating, but it was my wife that was suddenly trying to find the remote to pause it. Why? Because they’ve added a QR Code to one of their adverts. Take a look at the pic below – there is it on the left side contained in a old-style television set (I’ve added a close-up of the code at the bottom of this post so you can scan it for yourself).

With anything QR Code related, the office bunch here at QrTY get rather excited, especially seeing them being used in the mainstream media. Sadly though, there’s a couple of reasons why 4Music have missed an opportunity to really make good use out of this rapidly emerging technology.

In the last 6-12 months you may have noticed a huge increase in the use of QR Codes and marketing, Mothercare, Boots, B&Q, but the major mistake most businesses have fallen foul to is not utilising the codes for the real added value they can have. Do not link your code through to just a normal website, this defeats the object. Every QR Code (or as we like to call them QrTY Codes), give or take, is going to be scanned using a smartphone. So why not create a page specifically designed and optimised to take advantage of the fact that this is a known constant?

The 4music QrTY code links through to a secret – or as they call it a ‘treat’ page – which is just a standard page on their 4music website. The opening paragraph reads ‘Yay! Well done, you tech-savvy 4music.com lovers!  You spotted our not so secretly hidden QR code and because we heart you, we’re giving away an amazing free gift…’ with nothing added to the page for the smartphone user. To solidify the missed opportunity point even further, the comment section has a reader error (depending on your phone) as you need to have Flash installed to use. We all know the problems with Flash and smartphones…

Maybe the problem is that very few companies have taken the time to properly understand QR codes and have tried to introduced them in fundamentally flawed ways. As in the 4music example – linking QR codes to traditional websites. This then leads through to the end user (your target audience) who has the frustration with QrTY codes as they see no benefit in their application.

With the rising promotion of these easy to use and elegant codes is that when done correctly, can really work to your advantage. They are by no means the holy grail of advertising, marketing and communication, as there must be a strategy in place when utilising them.

 

Give it a try – scan the code below (there’s links here for you to download one of the many free apps).

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