Rating: Does anybody else ever bother to check*?
Go on. Go on. Just try scanning it.
It has always been GoMobile News contention that the drinks [alcoholic beverages] industry is one of the biggest implementers of QR [2D] barcodes as a business sector. Certainly in the UK. And we quite agree that there is some very creative thinking behind the majority of their campaigns. Our only question is … Do you guys ever bother to check these things actually work? GoMobile News has just struggled with one QR campaign from Jameson and absolutely failed on a second one from Guinness. This really isn’t helping build consumer confidence in QR codes, you guys.First let’s take the QR code we discovered on a beer mat which declares, “Try Jameson with ginger, lemonade or apple and a few good friends.”
What was wrong with this campaign? Short answer? You need a really decent camera inside your smartphone to be able to read the actual QR code because it is too small and indistinct.
Firstly, GoMobile News tried scanning the code with a BlackBerry. No joy. Then we moved onto our trusty Nokia Lumia 800 W7 Mango phone.
We really did expect this smartphone to be able to handle the QR code reading but it didn’t.
Incidentally, on the Lumia we tried both the ScanLife Classic and NeoReader QR code reading apps.
Something of a first for us, NeoMedia actually generated a crash report when we made the umpteenth attempt to read the QR code on the Nokia smartphone.
However, when we scanned the QR code with ScanLife on the superb Motorola RAZR Android smartphone (which we reckon is totally underrated), we instantly got connected to the Jameson site.
For our curious readers, the code takes you to http://m.jamesonwhiskey.com. Now the first screen you see is – quite rightly – an age verification page.
Shouldn’t someone have bothered to ensure that this page was mobile friendly because it took us ages to be able to fill in the requisite data using the RAZR’s standard browser?
But at least it worked. The Guinness QR Cup was far more ingenious but it doesn’t work at all*.
We traced this story back to The Dieline web site here and it’s impressive.
Somebody has created a Guinness glass that sports a QR code which only works when the glass is filled with a porter [dark ale] such as Guinness.
It won’t work if the glass is empty (aaah!) or when it is filled with lager (sacrilege)!
The snag? Well, when you actually scan the QR it takes you to a shortcode which is http://bit.ly/hOvdU4. That’s a capital ‘o’ not a zero by the way.
That URL is currently pointing at a site called ‘livepint.com’ which is parked for its owner[s].
So why has everyone printed that it, ” tweets about your pint, updates your facebook status, checks you in via 4 square, downloads coupons and promotions, invites your friends to join, and even launches exclusive Guinness content?”
Because they haven’t bothered to do any research and GoMobile News does. That’s the difference.
*UPDATE: It turns out that the Guinness QR Cup campaign was an old one. See our follow-up article here.
Actually Dennis, everyone seems to have failed to do their homework on this one (including Mashable who ‘broke’ it and yourself). This campaign doesn’t work because it is from over a year ago and was a *very* limited run of glasses. BBDO and Diageo didn’t have a clue that it would be picked up 12 months later by a Mashable writer who didn’t bother with research.
That leads to the question of whether any url used in a campaign should ever be allowed to go dead?
I scanned the Guinness code when it came out a couple of months ago and it did actually work. Most likely, the campaign has ended which is why the domain has been taken offline. True, it would be better if they’d created a landing page stating that the campaign had ended, but it doesn’t automatically mean that the previous reports are faulty.
Actually my surname is Dennis and my first name is Tony. So you’re not Mr Accurate yourself.
I think my point stands. BBDO & Diageo don’t understand QR codes. They are not set in stone.
It could very easily point to another page saying bad luck guys this promo is over.
BestBuzz is a company that does QR codes brilliantly, check them out!The authors comments are valid.pages shouldn’t be allowed to go dead and codes must be of a size to be scanned.when agencies don’t follow basic best practice rules it damages the qr code experience for companies that do it right
Exactly what we think here at GoMobile News
I don’t need to be Mr. Accurate, I’m not writing news stories and analysis.
Nowhere in your analysis does it mention that it is an old, very limited campaign and talk about this aspect in relation to the URL no longer working. Had you done your research (scanning a code is not research) you would have found this out quite quickly. Your assertion that “no-one else” had done their research is what made me post in the first place.
The question I posited at the end of my previous post asks the question of whether URLs used in advertising should be allowed to die or kept alive in some fashion. That’s the real interesting part of this for the marketing world.
You need to read this article http://www.gomonews.com/actually-the-guinness-qr-cup-is-a-multi-winner/ and the comments to this story.
A multi-award winning campaign and you let the URL die? Crazy.
Well now that’s a better, researched analysis – one that I agree with. Maybe you should add an UPDATE link to the article at the bottom of this one, or change the article wording with a link?
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I Don’t really think these QR Codes are catching on… What does everyone else think?