What NOT to do with QR codes!

It's worth the click to MediaPost Publications to get all the details. Anyway, here's the money quote:

2D codes threaten to go everywhere.

But like everything else, if it's not deployed correctly, don't do it. A good idea, deployed incorrectly is a bad idea. A mediocre idea perfectly deployed is usually good enough. In art, good enough is not good enough. In business, good enough is fine.

MediaPost Publications Down The Mobile Anti-Marketing Hole 06/18/2009
It started innocently enough. It was a cool June day on the streets of New York where outside of Penn Station some street marketers were passing out samples of Speed Stick antiperspirant. When I got to my hotel room and unpacked the cellophane bag I noticed that the promo included a 2D code I was prompted to snap and send to a short code.

Ok, fair enough. The theme of the campaign is "Different Strokes for Different Folks," to promote three kinds of Speed Stick for a range of sweating types ("what's your pit type?"). And to the marketers' credit the concept of the 2D code is aligned with the brand message. The offer suggests that by using the 2D code I will be able to "make a 2D code that belongs to you and you alone."

So far so good. Nice idea. But at the end of the day it sucks.

: "The problem is, it's a pain in the consumer's ass to execute. This campaign not only turns me off to the brand, it turns me off to 2D codes as well.

I have never been a fan of slapping these things anywhere. I much prefer image recognition technology for this. UPC codes and the like were made for machines, not people. And most UPC codes are confined to packaging, where they can be tucked away out of sight or restricted to a single page of a magazine.

2D codes threaten to go everywhere. And there is nothing aesthetically pleasing or directly communicative about them. They are just a big fat eyesore that engineers and geeks might find energizing. The rest of us just want to peel them off of our otherwise pleasant-looking world. The prospect of a world filled with these things is too unappealing to ponder."

"The prospect of a world filled with these things is too unappealing to ponder?" My guess is that the writer doesn't know about what's going on in Japan. I bet if a printer told him, he would like to hear it.

And once we get dynamic QR codes to scale for Clickable Print New York, it won't be such a pain in the ass for the customer and the CMO will still get the information they need.