2D bar codes: cool, but still not prime time

2D barcode

Don't scan this.

2D codes have been the next big thing in interactive marketing/advertising/social media for a couple of years now. Unfortunately, the 2D code wave still hasn’t made it across the Pacific from Japan.

That doesn’t stop people from writing articles telling businesses how to use them and get in on “the next big thing” early. Take Jamie Turner’s article on Mashable about how to grow your sales using 2D codes. While it has a few good suggestions (2D code on the back of your business card which contains your info in a vCard), some of his suggestions amount to nothing more than just sticking codes in places where they’re less convenient than printed text. 2D code on a billboard? Not so great if you’re driving by.

But the lack of innovative ideas for using codes isn’t what’s holding back adoption of them. It’s the fact that scanning apps aren’t ubiquitous yet. Seriously, why would a business put out marketing materials which have to include instructions for how to find an app, which then has to be downloaded and installed before the user can scan a code? All that just to go to a URL?

Texting is ubiquitous because every cell phone sold in the world since 1998 can do it. Mobile web browsing is ubiquitous because every smartphone has a web browser and people learned how to type in a URL long before they had smartphones. Anyone seen a smartphone with a built-in barcode scanning app? Didn’t think so.

For 2D codes to catch on, mobile platform vendors need to start including a scanning app. Once every iPhone and Android device has a simple scanning app preinstalled, marketing with 2D codes will start making much more sense.

Having gotten that rant out of the way, I’d like to highlight the first truly creative use of 2D codes I’ve seen. Over at R and R Images blog, I saw this article on postage stamps issued by Chunghwa Post (the postal system of Taiwan) with codes integrated into the design. While it isn’t a marketing campaign, it’s a fun use of 2D barcodes. Big congrats to whoever in Taiwan thought up that idea.

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  • http://desertstandard.com halfacat

    Excellent post Matt! I want to integrate these into a few things but the fact that I cannot figure out how to use them tells me my users are going to find them useless and worse: an editorial oversight. “look at this ad? Guys got pixelation going on! Ugh!”

    • http://matthewpetro.name Matthew Petro

      I think part of the confusion with them is that there’s no big entity trying to build awareness and user familiarity. If Google, Apple or Microsoft got behind 2D codes, built an app into their mobile platforms and pushed user education, that would go a long way towards making them useful.

  • Brad M.

    Reminds me of the old CueCat from Radio Shack. Great concept, bad implementation.

  • http://www.mikejonesdesigns.com Mike Jones

    Thanks for the shoutout, Matt! I would agree – there’s a ways to go before QR codes go primetime. However, if you’re targeting the right demographic (esp. business executives) with a high amount of smartphone use, the response is pretty great. Just having the code in a campaign can elicit interest, even if the user doesn’t have the capability to scan it.

    • http://matthewpetro.name Matthew Petro

      So the novelty factor comes into play just as much as the actual usefulness of the code? Interesting.