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Just shy of 60 years ago, US inventors Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver hit upon an idea that was truly revolutionary: after overhearing a conversation between a local food chain boss and a university dean, where the food boss spoke of his desire to find a system that could read product data automatically, the duo set about creating a solution.
After a year's worth of intensive research they eventually filed patent number 2,612,994 for a pattern of concentric circles in a bull's eye design. While the patent was approved in the early 1950s, it was 20 years before the first item was scanned using this ‘Universal Product Code'. Since that humble packet of Wrigley's chewing gum passed through a reader at a supermarket in Ohio, America, in 1974, the barcode has become a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives and has significantly automated and streamlined all manner of complex processes. But the barcode could be under threat if a new pretender to the throne gets its way.
The QR code, a two-dimensional ‘quick response' barcode sometimes referred to as an ‘upcode', is all the rage at the moment. In Japan, they're putting them on gravestones with information about the deceased, in Spain they're using them in property adverts and in the US they're cropping up in magazines offering readers a more media-rich experience through audio and video content. While take-up in the UK has been relatively modest to date (one of the most innovative uses has been by graffiti artists in Bristol who are using QR codes to sell their printed work) great things are predicted for these scrambled black cubes that look like remixed barcodes.
Print opportunities
So where do printers come into all this? Well the good news is that QR codes could become the new black gold if print can learn how to sell them, says Kodak's enterprise solutions marketing director Matthieu Bossan, who is a great believer in the potential of QR codes.
"Like anything, the QR code needs to be sold in the context of a particular marketing solution - campaign management, for example, or games - so that people understand its value," says Bossan. "It can add value and move away from the idea of ink on paper as a commodity, because of its interactivity."
This is a view that GMC's managing director Rhys Morgan also subscribes to. "In a marketplace verging on commodity, with margins driven down, how do you break the mould? By doing something different, something that other people aren't doing and by adding value. Printers have got to move away from commodity, and channels like QR codes enable them to do so."
Manufacturers like Kodak and GMC have been talking to customers for some time to make them aware that this is a value-added service that they can quite easily offer their customers. So too is Domino, which will be running a QR code competition on the front cover of PrintWeek's IpexDaily, the official publication of Ipex 2010. The company has been printing QR codes in Japan for about five years, according to Vlad Sljapic, European sales director at Domino, and is advising printers embrace the technology because at the moment far too many of them "are missing a trick". He compares the current status of QR codes to that of barcodes when they were unveiled in the 1970s.
"When barcodes appeared for the first time they were looked at dubiously with people saying ‘they'll never catch on'," explains Sljapic. "Today almost everything has a barcode of one form or another. QR codes use less space to store more information and will ultimately replace barcodes because the method of reading the codes will become available to everyone - it's happening right now."
The beauty of QR codes is their sheer simplicity - access to media-rich information buried inside the code can be read by a webcam or a smartphone fitted with the right piece of software, simply by holding the phone over the code. As the number of smartphones in operation increases - they're anticipated to enjoy phenomenal growth over the coming years - the use of QR codes will also grow. But for the time being at least Chas Blanchard, marketing manager of Canon Europe, says that there haven't been that many examples of QR codes in action.
"The ability of end-users to use QR codes is not prolific yet. Although the readers are available to download, general consumers haven't really done that to date. However, QR codes will eventually take off because they're so simple to implement, easy-to-use and they're an effective interface between print and the internet."
This ability to "bridge the gap between physical media and digital media", as Ricoh UK marketing director Chas Moloney puts it, has helped QR codes to usurp other communications channels, such as those highly lauded PURLs – personalised web landing pages – which look likely to fall by the wayside due to usability issues as much as anything else.
"The key problem with PURLs is that it's a pain to look at a link and then type it into the address bar - it takes effort," says GMC's Morgan. "If you make it easier for somebody they're much more likely to use the technology."
Consumer convenience
Moloney agrees, saying that QR codes - essentially PURLs in a different guise – add more value. It's a similar argument when it comes to SMS messaging. "Text adds value to notify you of something, but it falls down a little bit when it comes to a call to action," argues Moloney.
However, Morgan still sees a use for text. "SMS is great as a reminder. It's crisp, easy to read, easy to delete and it's not incredibly intrusive." But it doesn't provide a particularly fulfilling brand experience for the customer, especially when you consider that more impactful messages can be delivered over those same handheld devices thanks to QR codes.
In addition to the media-rich content the codes offer, the other key benefits are that they're cheap and easy to produce – indeed in some instances some providers allow you to create them for free. Kodak delivers QR codes via Darwin, its VDP layout application, and Ricoh allows users to create their own QR codes gratis at the company's ww.ricohinnovations.com website.
"It's effectively a drag-and-drop system," explains Ricoh's Moloney. "Go to the web browser that you use and drag the URL into our software and it creates the code onto a website or as a PDF so that you can use it as you see fit."
This all sounds great but how can printers monetise the printing of QR codes? Kodak's Bossan says that, in the first instance, printers should be holding exploratory discussions with clients telling them how they can exploit this new
application.
"However, this needs to be part of a complete solution to support specific services," he cautions. "It also takes different skills and people in the organisation to proactively push these types of solutions, but it's definitely a way to differentiate your offering to your clients."
But these discussions will be problematic in themselves as GMC's Morgan feels that there is an important hurdle that has to be overcome within blue-chip organisations. "The biggest challenge facing printers is that corporate marketing departments believe that they can do it all themselves, so to go in there and tell them that they can't isn't the message that they want to hear."
The battle will be made easier if some corporates continue to embrace QR codes as they have done in recent months. Soft drink giant Pepsi is probably the biggest advocate of the technology, running a massive QR promotion on its cans over the last year or so, and glossy women's weekly Grazia recently published a special QR code issue. Examples such as these help to broaden customer knowledge of what these codes can offer and could be all persuasive, believes Sljapic.
"A lot of companies are investing serious amounts of money into conditioning the public to use QR codes and the efforts of these giants will provide the vehicle to deliver this mechanism," he explains.
On the shoulders of giants
Being championed by the likes of Pepsi will also help to persuade other corporates to follow suit for fear of being left behind. Many of these blue-chip companies are still keeping a tight rein on their marketing budgets as we emerge from recession, but Canon's Blanchard believes that printers can put forward a compelling argument about the use of cross-media tools such as QR codes thanks to measurability and the greater response rates that they offer.
"Print service providers' customers are realising the value [of cross-media campaigns] partly because of the incremental response rate that it drives, but they're only going to do it when the time is right for their budget," says Blanchard.
But printers wishing to get a piece of the action need to act swiftly. One insider claims that at least three "huge printers" in the UK are on the verge of making this feature a standard part of their selling portfolio and when they do the chances are that an avalanche of companies will follow in their wake. At the same time printers need to make sure that they don't get too blinded by the prize. While QR codes have their benefits, ultimately they're much more effective when they are used as part of a wider media mix, believes Franziska Muller, marketing director at DirectSmile.
"In this time of information overload, customer communications and marketing campaigns will seldom be successful if they only use a single medium," explains Muller. "It is usually those that transform the information to be communicated into something that will be noticed across a range of media that will have the highest response rate. To be successful, companies must embrace modern multichannel communications, including email, internet, text messaging and any other popular media launched in the next decade. But I also believe and hope that print, as one of the foundations in written communications, will always have its place in the media mix."
