Comscore just released a press release giving a sampler of their recent QR code study
- 14 million mobile users in the U.S. (=6.2 percent of the total mobile audience) scanned a QR or bar code on their mobile device
- more likely to be male (60.5 percent of code scanning audience), skew toward ages 18-34 (53.4 percent) and have a household income of $100k or above (36.1 percent)
- users are most likely to scan codes found in newspapers/magazines and on product packaging and do so while at home (58%) or in a store (39%)
The user group isnt much news and the consumption is relatively balanced but what is significant is the number of users and moreover the locations – I am not sure what the tipping point is but 14 million views for what might only cost a few cm in printed (or online) real-estate seems worthwhile.
The PR doesnt contrast how many QR codes were shown but the locations seemingly go against how I have seen QR codes have being mainly used – namely “outside and public transport” (which some would argue is NFC domain). The home and in-store make sense – sofa surfing comfort and chance for a better deal are preferable to taking photos of the corners of adverts in public places.
Ellos using QR codes at home and Copenhagen subway
QR codes gets a few headlines every year as the “promised year” when it all happens although first-hand it seems the QR code has made something of a come back this year and has featured prominently on a couple of big campaigns. In some cases the QR code is the campaign itself.
QR codes are literally at the center of a recent Telia campaign and SAS in-flight mag (no WiFi available..)
My feeling is that it is still more the “whats the weird barcode thing” novelty value than being a genuinely useful way to transfer information – a simple bit.ly address is always going to quicker for a txting gnrtn.
What happens next – how do QR codes grow from being an advertising novelty-fix used by marketing agencies to something more useful and mainstream ? how do they become “normal” to use in public places ? I have always like the idea behind them but QR codes (and derivatives) have come and gone. Aftonbladet, a popular Swedish paper, put a huge amount of effort into a (non-QR) barcode system and even declared impressive usage numbers but which has since disappeared. Aftonbladet went as far as printing “test papers” and using them all over the city to test real-world usage conditions so if they couldn’t make it work..
The problem has been in getting the necessary software installed which been stopped by the circular effect – media dont use QR codes because the phones could not read them <-> vendors dont include support for QR codes because media dont use them. This means QR support has been patchy at best – the Nokia S60s and even recent Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini (and probably others) have even included readers but at different times and with very different user experiences (and will Nokias long term QR code support extend to WinMo on first launch day ? probably not)
Whats changed since Aftonbladets effort is the introduction and mainstreaming of appstores – anyone can now find a QR code reader using <platform appstore> wherever they are. This assumes, however, that the non-techy user cares enough to read the small print to know that a “QR code” is the techy name and use it as a search term. This also then assumes that apps will actually work properly first time.
The emergence of Android with a 50%~ (sooner or later) market-share could give QR codes the support needed if included in the platform – making brand, model and even vendor opinions irrelevant. The need to start a separate QR code app could become replaced with face recognition-type functionality in the native camera (like S60 did so well..) where a code is found and highlighted passively in the viewfinder. This might also prompt Apple to include native support if iOS users are put at a UX disadvantage.
The camera requirements in Android are seemingly quite loose with custom camera applications and different features used by the different vendors so something between a license requirement, reference implementation and set of test cases would probably be the only practical way to promote support. Google could even provide vendor-netural server-based QR recognition and resolution to reduce the vendors efforts down to including a “Read Code” button.
Whats in it for Google ? the very short term (non-Google ?) view would be more mobile traffic means more Google service time means more eyeballs for ads. It would also be a way for Google to indirectly extend adwords to printed media. The ZXing project(includes some Google devs) and support in various Google projects suggest Google is at least warm to the idea of QR codes.
If we dont have QR support at platform level then I suspect they will only ever be an advertising agency tool.. or at least until the marketing novelty wears off.
