Putting the new rules to work

Archive for the ‘QR Codes & other gadets’ Category

Client: “Does your designer know how to do a QR code with a logo in the middle?” 

Me: “Why would she want to?”

So you tell me. Offhand, I’ll confess to a good bit of skepticism. I can see a number of reasons I’d hesitate to do this.

For starters, as a former corporate brand manager (I was Corporate ID manager for some of the BellSouth companies), I have a built-in aversion to anything that distorts your company logo. Most high-end companies have rules requiring a certain amount of space around their logos. Designers and video producers are always itching to have logos flipping, pulsing and doing other stuff. But when it comes to fancy gadgets, I’ve long since set my default response from “why not?” to “why?”

We’re way past the point where it’s a good idea to do something just because it looks cool. (When’s the last time you saw a “cool links” page?) I’ve used a QR code on a business card, and I guess it doesn’t hurt anything. The idea of embedding your contact info into the code is conceivably useful, since a smart phone app can usually import that straight into your contacts. But it can also make you look like you’re trying too hard. At any rate, how long does it really take to key in a contact? A minute? It takes me longer than that to pull out my phone, launch the code reader app, take the picture and make sure the data went into the right fields.

And even with the business card use, consider this. Let’s say you give me your card and I scan the code on the spot. Great. Now you’re in my contacts database. Here’s the card back. I don’t need it any more.

Only when I get back to the office, I have nothing to get me to focus on you or your product. Even if I kept the card, I’m likely to say “I’ve already got that info entered,” and toss it in the can. You and your message are lost in my contact files — out of sight and out of mind.

Finally, I still have painful memories of the old days when folks rushed to implement the latest tricks on their web sites — times when we had java-driven icons that waved, sites built entirely in Flash, and sites with stuff jumping and blinking all over the page. *Shudder.*

QR codes are undoubtedly a neato technology, and they have a place. Aaron Traffas spotted a story about one potentially useful application just this morning.

I just don’t see much to get excited about. But I’ll also admit that this is a preliminary reaction on my part. I reserve the right to change my mind.

So you tell my why I should, or shouldn’t. I’m listening.