Nothing in the mobile marketing world divides opinion quite like QR codes. Enthusiasts say they provide an easy way to bridge the offline and online worlds, offering an intuitive alternative to entering long URLs on a device (smartphone) that is not built for easy data entry.
Their detractors, on the other hand, argue that QR codes are ugly, unintuitive, and require too much effort on the part of the user to ever gain widespread acceptance. Only yesterday, we ran a Guest Column which argued that QR codes had failed, and then mused on what might replace them.
Personally, I can take them or leave them, but when I see one in the wild, I am always keen to put it to the test, knowing full well that half the time, the scan leads you somewhere that couldn’t be less optimised for mobile if it tried.
So yesterday I found myself out and about with half an hour to kill, so I picked up a copy of Cycling Weekly, sold on the issue by the reports on the first few stages of the Tour de France that were trailed on the front cover.
For anyone who has never seen the appeal of watching 200 men in lycra cycle a couple of hundred kilometres, only for all the action to be decided in a few seconds during a sprint finish, I say this: just give it a whirl and then see how you feel. Already this year, we have had a team bus stuck under a gantry on the finishing line as the riders hurtled towards it at speeds approaching 50 miles per hour (Stage 1); and a small dog come within a paw’s length of bringing down the whole peloton (Stage 2). And that’s before we head for the mountains, where the sight of a cyclist throwing a punch at one of the drunken spectators running alongside him with a random flag is not uncommon.
Anyway, back to the QR codes. The magazine’s coverage of the race was excellent, with some stunning photographs of the Corsican countryside, and lots of bikes of course. And alongside the coverage of each stage was a QR code, with an invitation to scan the code to see more pictures from that stage. Which I duly did. 
The good news is that I was taken to the magazine’s mobile site, where there were indeed more pictures for my enjoyment. The slightly less good news is that it wasn’t quite as described in the magazine. Scanning the Stage 1 QR code took me to a photo from Stage 1, followed by a photo of the Sky team presentation to the crowds before racing began. Next up was a photo of the British Road Race National Championships (men), followed by the women’s version of the same event. Then a shot from the British Time Trial Championships; one from the Tour de Suisse, Stage 9; same thing, Stage 8; a photo of some cyclists in Ipswich; back to the Tour de Suisse; and so on.
It was a similar story when I scanned the codes relating to Stages 2 and 3. Stage 2’s code brought up a photo from Stage 2, followed by the one I’d seen earlier from Stage 1, and then all the others I’d already seen in the same sequence. Same again for Stage 3’s code, which delivered a photo from Stage 3, then the same one from Stage 2, the same one from Stage 1, and on again through the same sequence.
Overall then, I was left feeling ambivalent about the whole thing. Before scanning the codes, my thoughts were that this was a good, logical way to use QR codes, to deliver more content than can be accommodated on the page. After scanning them, the overriding feeling was one of disappointment that the magazine, and the codes, had failed to deliver on the promise. Not the fault of the tech, but another small nail in its coffin, perhaps, because someone thought it would be great to put QR codes in the magazine, but didn’t back it up with the content promised on the page.
David Murphy
Editor
