QR Codes by the Glass
I recently read about BBDO’s use of QR codes for their client, Guinness (the beer, not the list of world records). I thought we would take a look at the campaign and talk about the pros and cons, how it might be different, and provide our take on what we may have done differently to raise the bar (and the glass) for Guinness.
PROS
- Creative – The QR code is woven into the design of the glass. It is elegant, stylish, and creative. Kudos to the BBDO creative department.
- Contrast – The QR code only works when the glass is full of Guinness beer (or presumably, another dark beer). Since QR codes need a contrasting color to work, the QR code must have a dark background, i.e. Guinness.
- Size – the QR code is big enough to be functional and not require a lot of futzing around with your scanner.
- Placement – the QR code is high on the glass and doesn’t wrap around the glass itself. This also greatly improves scanability with a good angle and reduced distortion.
CONS
- Privacy & Security – The QR code shown here is a Bitly QR code. The problem is that the stats are public. If this is indeed the “final product,” then we will all be able to watch the stats roll in to see what kind of traction it is receiving and from where. All of Bitly’s stats are public. Surprised? Check out this link to see for yourself.
- Destination – The QR code currently points to a dead website (livepint.com?).
Sure, they can log into Bitly and change the URL, but i(A reader notified us that Bitly will not let you edit a link or QR code destination once it has been created. (what?!!!) ) If you’re going to take a publicity shot, why not give it a little value rather than pointing to a GoDaddy landing page? As of this posting, there are over 3,800 clicks/scans. That’s a lot of wasted traffic.
DIFFERENT
- If this were one of our clients using our Capture platform, I’d recommend that they use our Intelligent Link Routing technology to automatically route every scan based on Country, State, Device, and Time of Day. This makes it more fun and changes it up for different people in different locations.
- I would also brand it with the Guinness logo. There’s no call to action on the glass. Sure, there’s a bit of curiosity when I see a QR code, however without a call to action, I don’t know who is behind the code. Is it the bar? The beer? An advertiser? Give me comfort in knowing who I’m engaging with after the scan.
- If Guinness or BBDO were using our Capture platform, they would also be able to tell how many individuals were scanning the glasses, how often they scanned, and if they clicked on any of our other media (Twitter, Facebook, Emails, Offline Signage, etc). Since we can stitch all of these activities together under a single device, we can quickly tell how many unique people are engaging with this campaign along with every other mobile touchpoint that Guinness is running.
All in all, I’d give this campaign a 3 out of 5. Kudos on creative, but it’s falling short on use of technology. Granted, I haven’t seen one of these in the wild yet, but if I do and it works just like this, someone should lay off the Guinness for a while until they get it right.
3,800 wasted visitors?? Their head of marketing is going to need to drink a few pints when he reads that sentence…
Andy, you need to research these things properly before you suggest ways to fix them. This campaign was run LAST YEAR and is no longer valid. Diageo/BBDO obviously didn’t expect it to get a revival due to Todd Wasserman’s lack of research…
But one thing they could have done was keep a simple landing page up – just in case.
Steve,
Thanks for the comment. I actually did do some googling to try and verify the timing on this campaign because I was positive that BBDO wouldn’t have made these mistakes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any mention of the campaign before the AdWeek article. The first click in bitly is March 6, 2011 – and never more than a click or five per day throughout the last year. Over 11,000 clicks were recorded in the last 30 days and almost 9,000 of them being in the last week.
Looking at the bitly stats, you can see that they never received more than a handful of clicks/scans per day until April 30th (188 clicks). The vast majority of their now 11,500 clicks happened after they received the media coverage and not during the campaign.
So, if this was indeed a campaign run previous to May 1, 2012, I’d say they have received far more publicity and attention after the campaign than during the campaign. A clear bobble for BBDO and a waste for Guinness.
Andy,
The information showing it as a 2011 campaign can be found through a Google search, but the recent flurry of activity overwhelms the results. It’s really Todd’s fault for not researching properly – and the modern way of reporting (bigger subject).
I’ve seen the bitly stats, but I guess a BBDO rep was not watching the channels that were running with this news over the last week or so, and so couldn’t react in time by reactivating the link. I don’t think they can really be blamed for the lack of landing page when most agencies where still thinking a little more old school at the time of it’s execution. It’s not unusual for campaigns to end and previous links to hit a dead end. Agencies are now realising that there is some mileage in keeping campaigns live for a period of time after it’s planned run, or at least diverting any associating links to the latest campaign.
Hindsight, as always, is 20/20.