QR Codes and Outdoor Ads
As I promised before, I’ll be talking about QR codes use in Outdoor advertising today. QR codes are widely used for outdoor advertising in Japan. QR codes can be visually attractive especially when it’s colored. For example, some publisher of comic books and magazines in Japan launched a unique outdoor campaign to promote its website for mobile phone(shown picture above). They placed many large-sized posters made of a QR code mosaic in Subway. The intention was to catch the attention of young people who are the primary users of mobile phones and comics. Every QR code in the posters had the same URL directing the users to company’s mobile website where users can find comics and watch them.
Another example would be an outdoor advertising of Uniden, an electronic appliances maker in Japan. People wearing some kind of asbestos suits with Uniden TVs strapped to their chests were walking around subway entrances in busy districts trying to catch people’s eyes. QR Code was on their back of the suit and it directs people to Uniden’s website. Since Uniden was an on-line seller without any physical stores in Japan, it was essential to attract people to its mobile website.
As I said, the strength of this outdoor advertising using QR codes are its visual attractiveness and eye-catching ability. Moreover, the fact that users can be directed to any website just by scanning the codes with their cell phone minimizes users effort to write down URL or name of company. Consequently, for advertisers and marketers, it’s very effective way to attract costumers with low cost.
QR code at bus shelter in San Francisco
