Rating: We were impressed with FluCamp’s graphics
Every weekend GoMobile News carries out arbitrary testing of the 2D/QR barcodes we encounter in real life. Our research is sometimes flawed but at least we bother to investigate how QR codes function in the real world. This time we ran into a campaign from FluCamp which worked well but wasn’t entirely mobile-friendly. We also discovered 2D barcodes buried on the pages of UK bikers’ publication, Motorcycle News (MCN). There codes proved exceedingly difficult to scan in. What GoMobile News really liked about the FluCamp campaign was its imaginative use of graphics.
The QR code itself was in Orange whilst it was surrounded by other graphics in black and orange. Despite this apparent ‘obstacle’ the QR code was read by our entry-level handset – a RIM BlackBerry 8250.
So no particularly high-res camera was being utilised and the code reading app was QR Code Scanner Pro (for BlackBerry).
The best bit about FluCamp’s advert was that the QR code itself formed part of a fake Space Invaders-style illustration. Very clever and very eye-catching.
An idea well-worth stealing given – to paraphrase Picasso, “Good artists copy- great artists steal.” Hence, the concept is well worth stealing.
The only thing which let this campaign down is that the URL associated with the QR code led to a standard (HTML) web page. It really should have pointed to a mobile-friendly site.
Our problem with the QR codes embedded on the pages of the popular MCN weekly newspaper was more worrying.
We pointed various devices at these QR codes. We tried the BlackBerry 8250 with various barcode readers and our trusty Nokia Lumia 800 W7 Mango handset (with ScanLife, NeoReader, etc) and had no joy.
After much struggling a friend’s Apple iPhone eventually managed to scan the code, although the effort involved didn’t point to any very exciting extra content.
This was a far from ideal situation and GoMobile News had to conclude that the resolution of the codes printed on the newspaper’s pages was far too low for regular smartphones.
Which is a shame really because we did like the idea of burying QR codes deep within the body copy of the publication’s features.
As usual, all GoMobile News can recommend is that – as a marketeer, we thoroughly recommend you deep test any campaign which deploys QR codes.
Make sure they work across a range of devices (not just the Apple iPhone) and ensure the content can easily be read on a handset’s screen.
Otherwise there’s a danger than the brand will be injured rather than enhanced.
Tony is currently Editor of GoMobile News. He has taken over this role from Bena Roberts. 
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