Ringing the virtual bell for QR codes

I’m a big fan of QR Codes. You know, those strange little squares that you see on advertising hoards, websites, branded merchandising and so on?

For the uninitiated, they’re essentially 3D barcodes that can carry a heap of information and send your smartphone’s browser to any destination you require it to … and beyond.

So many people using QR Codes these days simply have the embedded information point to a link, a website of some description carrying more information about a product or business, but you can actually use them to get the phone to carry out other, more powerful, applications too.

Place a QR Code in your traditional newspaper advertising, for example, and it can be used to open up the phone’s mapping software and navigate the user to your venue. Put one on your business card that, when scanned, will save your business’s telephone number and address to the phone’s contact list.

The next generation of pub customers aren’t wielding knives (well, not all of them, anyway) but instead smartphones are almost ubiquitous amongst people in their late teens and twenties these days. Applications that can read QR Codes are readily available across the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone Mobile platforms.

I’ve deployed QR Codes on my menus that, when scanned, take the phone to our Facebook page so that visitors can check in and let their friends know where they are and growth in this area is developing. The next step will be to put a code on to our media displays linking customers to special offers available only via specific applications.

Of course, some of this might seem like QR-Code overkill so there’s a strong argument to temper your use of these tools but, equally, they are a strong, quick and convenient method of engaging your customers, both existing and new.

And recently I’ve read of a marketing experiment by Diageo, who have developed a pint glass with an embedded QR Code. The code only shows up when the glass is full of Guinness and doesn’t work if it’s empty or another, lighter, product is poured in to it.

The code takes the user to a social networking page where they can let their friends know where they are, and that they’re drinking a delicious pint of cold Guinness.

As QR Code marketing campaigns go it is, simply, ingenious. Dear Diageo. Please make these glasses. And send a batch to me…