Innovative Uses of QR Codes

Posted on 5/18/2011 at 6:34 PM - Link

QR code presents an exciting new way for companies to market, and people to connect.  If you are not familiar with these interactive two dimensional icons, try creating one using a QR code generator. If you already know about these unique barcodes then you will simply enjoy the innovative things people have done with their QR codes.

1. As Rich as a Grain of Sand.

In 2009, a Tokyo team from a communications company devised a marketing campaign around a girl in a bikini lying on the beach.  It doesn’t sound that innovative, but wait…she just so happened to be posed next to a huge QR code sandcastle. 

2. The QR code Hotel.

Physical structures always have a way of making an impression and getting one’s attention.  If a hotel just so happens to be designed as a 3-D QR code then all you have to do is snap a picture of it on your smart phone to book a room.  In Dubai’s Studio City, the Code Unique Hotel, as part of Project Code, is open to all travelers seeking entry into the 21^st Century.

3. Lego of my QR code.

A Germany toy store recently launched a 3-D interactive campaign to sell Legos.  By placing carefully designed Lego-designed QR codes into free standing kiosks for customers to photograph with their smart phones, they reached into their community and moved units.  Interesting designs were integrated into the Lego QR codes to tell stories that could be unlocked by a person’s cell phone reader.  Some of them were of spaceships, sea monsters, fire trucks battling a blaze, wizards, and fairy princess.

4. The Ralph Lauren Interactive Window.

By placing a QR code into their window displays, stores continued to sell merchandise long after the retailers had closed shop and gone home.  Now passersby could still grab that impulse item while running through the checkout on their mobile phone.

5. The Audi Human Code.

Car commercials have all the fun.  By placing back squares on white tiles and having employees stand in designated places they created a large QR code that when viewed above by a smart phone took drivers to a video of the code being created on the company’s website.

6. The Sony Vaio Scavenger Hunt.

An advertising company developed a mobile scavenger hunt for attendees of the South by Southwest festival last year.  The treasure hunt involved locating clues that would be uncovered by scanning QR codes.  Each clue took participants around the festival, driving traffic to their clients.

7. AXA Paint Cans & Billboards.

Using empty paint cans to create a 3-dimensional installation in their billboard, AXA Bank created a giant advertisement of their new loans.  Everyone that scanned the gigantic QR code was taken to a mobile site where information on the loan was given.

8. New York Decoded.

The Mayor of the city that never sleeps has launched an innovative QR code campaign intended to lead visitors to historic points of interest where they can scan buildings and statues for extra information not normally found on location.

9. Buddha Encoded.

In Tokyo, Japan, the Ryouhouji Temple in Hachioji are used to attracting attention.  After posting a QR code billboard, the monks of the temple began creating, what they call “Mobile Sutras”.  Now, for a small donation wayward souls can obtain a small greeting card that has a QR code stamped on that back that will allow them to hear Buddhist scriptures from the temple when they scan it with their phone.  Now, that’s instant karma!