This week, MGH released results from a survey that gauged consumer awareness and usage of QR codes – an emerging technology that connects people to Web content through bar codes scanned by mobile devices.
Deployed to smartphone users, the survey aimed to better understand how and why consumers are using this up-and-coming technology – in order to unearth ways in which marketers could better use the codes.
Many of the survey’s results should come as a welcome surprise to advertisers who have struggled to understand if and how the codes could fit into their marketing mix.
The results
Overwhelmingly, the study found increasing consumer interest in the use of QR code technology, and possible implications for the future of adverting.
In particular, the study found that 72% of smartphone users would be likely to recall an ad featuring a QR code. This can likely be attributed to the unique design, interactive nature and “new” appeal of the codes. For advertisers looking to cut through the clutter of a crowded marketplace, QR codes could offer a solution to gaining consumer attention and eyeballs.
In terms of QR code awareness, the survey results found that 65% of smartphone users had previously seen a QR code. Over the next year, as marketers continue to include the codes on products, ads and collateral, this awareness level is likely to climb.
But has awareness translated into usage?
Of those respondents who had previously seen a QR code, nearly 50% said they had used one. It’s still unclear as to why awareness has not resulted in higher usage numbers, but could likely be a result of consumer uncertainty or misunderstanding about the codes. It could also possibly be attributed to the need to download QR code reader applications on certain smartphones.
But a lack of past usage does not necessarily mean consumers are uninterested in using the technology. In fact, the survey found that 70% of smartphone users would be interested in using a QR code again or for the first time.
A previous study by In-Store Marketing Institute (conducted by Catapult and Ipsos OTX, September 2010) found that 35% of U.S. shoppers (smartphone and non-smartphone users) were interested in using QR codes as shopping tools.
Among those who were identified as being interested in the technology, 87% responded with an interest in using QR codes to gain coupons, deals or discounts. Even more impressive, however, is the fact that 60% of those interested in using the codes would use them to make a purchase.
For businesses looking for new ways to expand through advertising, QR codes could offer that opportunity by creating direct ties to sales through mobile purchases and coupons.
Conclusions
- Consumers are increasingly interested in interacting with advertising that bears a QR code – thus, the promise of additional benefits in the form of deals, coupons, videos, sweepstakes, social media interactions, etc.
- QR codes can help an ad break through the clutter by increasing the chance it will be remembered – great news for advertisers who have already integrated a QR code strategy into a traditional advertising campaign or are looking to insert them in a future campaign.
- Mobile is here to stay, and brands that don’t embrace ways to weave mobile tactics into their marketing place are going to be left in the dust (just remember all of those companies that thought the Internet was a fad).
