QR Codes and Tesco
By @edent
· mobile QR Codes tesco · 2 comments · 300 words · read ~467 times.
It's great seeing QR codes going mainstream. First ASDA, then ITV2, now Tesco are creating print adverts with QR codes.
After years of me banging on about how they were poised to take on in the UK - it looks like they've made it.
The advert is a pretty good start. I'm a bit confused about why it says "Use your iPhone or Blackberry to scan the barcode" when both Android and Nokia also have barcode readers (I guess Windows Phone 7 will have one too). 
I left this comment on the site.
Looks really good. Glad to see a mainstream brand like Tesco using QR Codes. One thing - would it be possible to point to a mobile version of the site? The page that's linked to is a bit heavy - especially if you're only getting 2.5G speeds. It might also be worthwhile customising the bit.ly URL to be a bit more meaningful. For example, I've just created http://bit.ly/TescoCOD which links to the same page but looks a bit nicer when scanned in.
It's great to see QR codes finally start to break into the British mobile scene. With a little more thought and effort, retailers can really harness the power of these little squares of joy.
Something that will particularly interesting over the next few weeks is seeing the response rate to the advert. Luckily, bit.ly provides statistics for all the URLs it generates. So, by visiting http://bit.ly/aefZn7+ we can see, more or less in real time, the effectiveness of the campaign.
Fun times ahead!
The bit.ly click count you pointed to on twitter is up to nearly 4k now. I'm amazed it's that high to be honest. Does suggest that the QR codes will provide a good measure of response for outdoor media, print ads etc. Could be very disruptive.
Hi Terence,
To answer your questions:
According to Mike, that isn't the final press poster, he said it had been changed to "use your smartphone..." Also, Ents doesn't have a mobile site yet. Also, it works fine on iPhone, Android & BB on a normal 3G connection, but yes, on 2.5G it isn't great, especially on the graphic rich Entertainment website.