badvertising – Terence Eden’s Blog

My theory on why advertising is so terrible

@edent — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 11:03:02 +0000

I accidentally watched a TV advert the other day.

A woman was on a Zoom call with friends. Her blurred background failed and revealed her ugly kitchen. Her friends all laughed at her. So she went along to AMAZING KITCHENS DIRECT 2 U and got a brand new kitchen. Now her friends are embarrassed about their kitchens!

What kind of fucking psychopath puts that out there into the world? Preying on people's insecurities when there's a pandemic on is disgusting and irresponsible.

I stopped watching adverts around the turn of the century. I got an early TiVo and merrily used the 30-second-skip to jump through them. My housemates didn't understand. They saw the adverts as a kind of alternative programming. And, to be fair, some adverts can be as amusing and heart-warming as any show. But most are just low-grade junk designed to get you to buy crap you don't need.

And so, on to my theory. Most advertising is crap because it is designed to be watched by people too stupid to block advertising.

In the seminal paper "Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?", a Microsoft employee posits that the "scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor." (emphasis added)

That's what has happened now. Anyone with a lick of sense has an ad-blocker on their computers. Anyone with money has either a streaming service with no adverts, or a TiVo style box to skip them. So advertising goes from being merely an irritant to a stream of toxic sludge filled with parasites.

Advertising doesn't attempt to be clever - because clever people aren't watching. Advertising doesn't attempt to be honest - because victims don't know how to complain. Advertising doesn't attempt to be decent - because emotionally mature people don't fall for it.

The single most important thing you can do to improve your life - and the lives of your family and friends - is to install an adblocker.

if ( gender == "female" && married == True && age >=30 ) { hasChildren = True; }

@edent — Wed, 12 May 2021 11:21:11 +0000

Marketing really is crap. Recently, SE Railways sent this piece of email drivel to my wife:

We don't have any kids, thankfully - and are not having any in the future. My wife was literally recovering from a sterilisation procedure when the email arrived. So it seemed a bit weird that they'd send her a message like that.

My wife has never booked a child's fare. She's done nothing to indicate to them that she has spawned. They know that she's married and female, because she set her title to "Mrs". They got her date of birth from the ID checks they carried out - we think.

As far as we can tell, they've unilaterally decided that all married women of a certain age must have kids. Or, perhaps, they just lazily sent the message to all women?

So, she spoke to them, to ask why this specific piece of guff had been sent to her. All they'd say was the rather nebulous statement that the emails was a "targeted email sent to a number of passengers [...] When passengers use our services we're able to use this data to help us target communications effectively."

Not really answering the question. But they decided to bung us £20 of M&S vouchers for the "upset".

Even the most modest of interactions with a company will be data-mined for trivial details in the vague hope of getting you to spend more money.

Here are a few tips if you want to avoid getting microtargetted like this:

Consider using a gender neutral title like Mx - or earn yourself a doctorate.
Use an initial rather than a first name. Names can be used to determine likely age.
Don't answer any demographic questions which aren't necessary to the provision of the service, or have a legal/regulatory basis.
You generally can't unsubscribe from service emails, but you can close your account once you've finished your transaction. Digital hygiene is essential!

Of course, if you complain about a mistargeted email, that's another data-point they have about you!

Warning - do not click on Twitter ads

@edent — Sun, 26 May 2019 11:37:54 +0000

It seems that Twitter has lost control of its advertising system. This blog post will show you why it is dangerous to click on any Twitter advertising.

Twitter ads have always been a bit crap, but I've seen a recent influx in outright scams. Let me step you through a couple of examples.

A typical click-bait headline. What has our favourite celeb done this time?

In a moment of weakness, let's click through...

Straight away we can see that the branding on the site has been set up to mirror a popular news website.

The "article" is a poorly disguised get-rich-quick scheme. Spoiler Alert! You will not get rich quick - you will get poor rapidly.

This is the sort of advert which shouldn't get through a manual review. I'd argue that even automated tooling should be able to spot spam, scams, and frauds like this. But Twitter is completely asleep at the wheel here.

How do I know? Let's look at who promoted the ad. Usually these scams are pushed by dormant account, or by freshly created accounts. In this case, it is promoted by an ordinary user. And, it appears that they are entirely blameless - this advert did not originate with them.

The user claims they didn't post this. Someone has hijacked their account - probably by weak password reuse - and started spewing spam.

Why don't people spot this?

Twitter promoted posts don't have to show up on your timeline. Apple, for example, sends out lots of adverts like this:

But if you take a look at twitter.com/apple - it looks like they haven't ever tweeted!

If your account has been hijacked by a spammer, you won't know about it.

No tweet will show up on your timeline, and your followers won't be able to alert you. You cannot search for posts which have been promoted by you. The only way you'll find out if your account has been compromised is if people start replying to the advert.

As far as I can tell, a regular user can't delete a promoted Tweet from within Twitter. They have to use the Twitter Ad Platform. There is no way a normal user would know to do that.

It goes on

If you click the replies on promoted tweets, you'll regularly see similar comments. Users claiming to have been hacked, and being unable to remove the offending tweet.

Twitter has a problem with deceptive adverts - as I wrote earlier this year "Crypto Scammers Abusing Twitter Cards via Redirects".

You may think a promoted post is going to a site like CNN - but it could redirect you to a malicious site. For example, this promoted Tweet features Elon Musk and looks like it goes to CNN.com

If you're daft enough to click on it, you go to this page. A reasonably convincing clone of CNN. Full of stuff about how you can't lose money. Even has fake comments at the end, to give it legitimacy. But, you'll notice, it isn't a CNN domain. What's going on?

Twitter generates preview "cards" for web addresses. In this case, we can use the Twitter Card Validator to see that the website sends Twitter to CNN - but the user is redirected elsewhere.

In short - Twitter's advertising system is designed in such a way as to mislead the user about where their click will take them.

What can Twitter do to fix this?

Twitter could manually review adverts. Or make sure that the person promoting the tweet owns the domain they're linking to. Or require 2FA before allowing users to buy adverts. Or they could notify users that their account is being used for advertising. Or any one of a dozen ideas I'm sure the gang at Twitter could come up with during a lunch break.

Or they could respond to users who ask them for help.

There are so many blatantly deceptive adverts on Twitter, that I can only conclude that generating revenue is more important than protecting their users. That's an unsustainable situation.

What can you do to stay safe?

When you click on a promoted Tweet, you have no way of knowing whether it was willingly sent by the user. You have no way of knowing where on the web that link will take you.

I urge you not to click on any Twitter adverts.

The Uncanny Valley of Consent - when advertising gets creepy

@edent — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 11:57:37 +0000

Music streaming service Spotify has launched a new range of adverts which have gathered mixed reactions.

On the surface, they seem like the usual bland corporate attempts at chumming down - trying to cynically pass off advertising as friendship.

It's kinda funny, right?

Is that OK? It feels like it might not be OK.

There's no doubt that some people find these adverts unsettling.

The Uncanny Valley

As robots and computer generated imagery become more realistic, they hit an inflection point known as the "Uncanny Valley". Something which looks and behaves in an almost lifelike fashion is repulsive to many people.

... subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and more eerie in very humanlike robots. MacDorman, K. F., & Ishiguro, H. (2006). The uncanny advantage of using androids in social and cognitive science research. Interaction Studies, 7(3), 297–337. doi:10.1075/is.7.3.03mac

You've probably noticed bad special-effects in a movie where people don't move quite as you expected them to, or been irritated by the phony intonation of a computer generated voice on the phone.

A good example of the uncanny valley is this almost-human-yet-really-creepy robot of the actor Scarlett Johansson.

It's is hard to identify what precisely makes the robot look so wrong. The pose is a little off, the skin tone is not quite right, the eyes are... I can't put my finger on it.

To experience the full terror, you can watch the video about the robot's construction. Warning you may find disturbing. Also it contains (robot) nudity which... I dunno... feels like it ought to be NSFW.

Feels Vs Reals

Let's take another quote from the original paper about the Uncanny Valley. Emphasis added:

... the eerie sensation associated with the uncanny valley may be peculiar to the violation of human-directed expectations MacDorman, K. F., & Ishiguro, H. (2006). The uncanny advantage of using androids in social and cognitive science research. Interaction Studies, 7(3), 297–337. doi:10.1075/is.7.3.03mac

That's the crux of the matter. Corporations aren't people. When they behave like people, it gets weird.

Holly Brockwell has written eloquently about the problems of Facebook's algorithm-driven "On This Day" feature. When Facebook says you might be interested in reliving old posts which bring you nothing but pain it feels like a personal attack.

It isn't, of course. It is a coldly mechanical procedure which is trying desperately to pass itself off as human. In doing so, it exposes just how far from human it is.

If your best friend sent you a birthday card making reference to a book you both loved as kids, that's adorable.

If Amazon strip-mines your chat history and suggests buying the same book, that's creepy.

Is Spotify being creepy?

Feelings are intrinsically valid. You can't tell me that watching a horror movie didn't scare me, or that listening to The Beatles doesn't make me happy.

Many people find these adverts creepy.

Let's assume that these are data-driven adverts based on real users (I suspect that they're purely creative).

Have people consented to having their data used in this way? Probably.

You did read the Terms & Conditions when you signed up, right?

You grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid, worldwide licence to use and distribute any of your User Content in connection with the Service through any medium

(Edited for brevity.)

But legal doesn't mean morally right. And that is why people are having a visceral reaction. There's something innately inhuman about about a large, powerful company mocking its customers.

Imagine if you are the Londoner who featured in this advert. Do you find it funny? Upsetting?

Does it make you paranoid if you see that poster in your local tube station? Is everyone laughing at you? Are you OK?

Be seeing you.

The Curious Case of Amazon's IMDb Adverts

@edent — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:23:45 +0000

The Internet Movie Database is one of the most venerable sites on the Web. It was founded by a British programmer in 1990 as a collection of Usenet posts (kids, ask your parents). By 1993 it was on the nascent World Wide Web - and was hosted out of Cardiff University in Wales.

IMDb was one of the earliest success stories for the UK Internet industry when, in 1998, Amazon.com bought them.

Given its proud heritiage, why don't Amazon care about the British users of its site? If you visit the site on your phone, this is the advert you see.

Oh! Cool! The new Kindle tablet. Why, I just gotta get me one of those! Let's click the link...

Oh...

Yup, the advert is for the American tablet. The price is listed in US Dollars and, once I'm on the Amazon.com website, there's no obvious way to get to the .co.uk version.

This is madness! The IMDb is consistently ranked in the top 50 most visited sites worldwide. Over 60% of its visitors are from outside the USA. Why are Amazon ignoring all those customers?

Mobile advertising really isn't that hard. You find a way to match a user to a product. One of the simplest ways to do that is to determine the country the user is in. You show Indian adverts to people living in India, and Japanese adverts to people living in Japan. That's not rocket science.

If, for some strange reason, you can only afford to design a single advert - your back end services should redirect the user to the website which is most appropriate. Most of the French people clicking on your link are going to want a site which is written in their language and priced in their currency.

It's unlike Amazon to leave money on the table like this. They have a vast international audience and yet they're simply ignoring their needs.

Why?

You Can't Buy Your Way Into Social Media

@edent — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 08:30:33 +0000

I've been taking a look at how big brands try to buy their way in to social spaces online. I'm not talking about ephemeral advertising on the side of the screen, I mean "sponsored posts".

It strikes me that large companies simply don't realise that buying your way into a conversation is an admission of failure. It's like being that kid who no one likes but, hey, we'll play with him because his parents buy him loads of toys. It's not friendship, it's not authentic, it doesn't create anything more than the most transient of relationship.

This is best summed up in this quote from Mike Arauz:

Buying a sponsored post on Facebook or Twitter is the equivalent of winning a prize when you've bribed the judges. Unsurprisingly, people react negatively to it. I've already written about the backlash against TomTom's advertising. In this post, I want to focus less on the argument about whether social media should have advertising, and more on why advertisers need to be worried about how they position themselves and respond to critical content.

Here is the latest Facebook sponsored post from Coca Cola. By most lazy metrics, it's a success - 32 thousand likes and over a thousand comments. What's not to love?

Once we dive in to the comments, and see what people are talking about, we get a very different impression.

At first, we see a mix of banter - praise and disparagement.

Some people think it's too early for a Christmas campaign and react in a humorous fashion.

But it turns sinister very quickly.

Some users are clearly very upset about the presence of Coke on their wall.

Others want to talk about Coke sponsoring the homophobic Winter Olympics.

Spammers quickly jump aboard. After 7 hours, it's clear no one from Coke is monitoring these posts.

The vitriol begins to grow.

The dirty tricks of Coca Cola begin to be discussed.

As do the health effects.

The "Good Deeds" theme is quickly exposed as corporate greenwashing.

I haven't even mentioned the posts promoting competitors, the racist language, or the repeated calls for them to stop avoiding tax.

Without realising it, Coca Cola have created that most valuable of things - a Social Object. Essentially, it's the nexus of a social network - a thing that people want to talk about.

...[H]ere we all are gathered here tonight around this Social Object. The network builds itself around it. The money, therefore... is in the object. Not the network. If you build it they will come.
James Whatley on Social Objects

This advert is a fantastic Social Object! They've got people talking about their advert - the only voice missing from the conversation? Theirs!

Yup, they've built a Social Object and completely failed to capitalise on it. They could be talking about the good work they're doing, refuting the health claims, talking seriously about workers rights, sharing insights into why they made this advert rather than use their old one - the list is endless.

Instead, they've chosen the laziest way imaginable. Release an advert, force it into people's social networks, then sit back and relax.

If one of the world's largest companies, employing the best advertisers, working in conjunction with the top social network, can't get this right, we might as well call game over for social advertising.

I understand and accept that a free service is paid for by advertisers. But do the advertisers understand how to use this medium? After all, Facebook has only been open to the public for 7 years - we can't expect advertisers to understand how the medium works - not with the amount of coke they "drink".

If companies can't figure out how to engage with their audience in an authentic manner, they will face a backlash of their own making.

To those who say "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product", I'll let my wife rebut this lazy generalisation:

Facebook might not like this attitude, but they made the decision to design a business which sells rational, self interested agents in the first place. If they didn’t want their "product" to rebel against them they shouldn't have gone into the business of selling something which has a brain.
Liz Eden

Social Media Marketing Fatally Undermined By User Sabotage

@edent — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 11:00:30 +0000

I was at a funeral the other day. A group of us were sharing memories of the deceased. Talking about her laugh, how mean she could be, how we never told her that we loved her.

Suddenly, a stranger walked over to us in the graveyard and said, "Friends, have you tried the great taste of the Big Kahuna Burger? With its mouthwatering blend of herbs and spices, you're sure to have a Big Kahuna Day! High-five me if you agree!"

Needless to say, we each gave him a high-five in the face and spent the rest of the week telling everyone how crappy Big Kahuna are.

That's where we are with Social Media Marketing today. The Prophets told us that "Markets Are Conversations" - but, somehow, the people doing the marketing didn't realise that conversations are bi-directional.

Part of the problem is just laziness. Vice magazine have done an excellent round up of all the faux-interactive marketing messages which are being pumped out by major companies every day.

The other part is that we don't like our private and personal spaces invaded by those we haven't invited. We use Facebook to woo, to reminisce, to love, to share, to play, and to argue - and we do it all with our friends and family. So when a brand tries to muscle in on that conversation, it cheapens the experience and makes us angry. Properly angry.

Go up to a couple kissing in the park, or a parent playing with their child, and start talking to them about the benefits of of a cordless drill and see how long it is before they tell you to piss off. Why should it be any different online?

Actually, online it's far worse; your positive message can be fatally undermined by the people you have angered.

Take this example from Tom Tom on Facebook. It's unbelievably lazy (and sexist) and it doesn't fit in with a social network. Unsurprisingly, users revolted. Below are a selection of comments left by angry users. Each one visible to anyone commenting on the advert. Warning - some strong language ahead. I've trimmed out a number of people who engaged positively with the advert - no doubt sharing their sentiment with their friends.

Is this what social marketing is? Shoe-horning your tone deaf messages into personal spaces? Ignoring the conversation? Refusing to acknowledge to legitimate complaints? Subjecting social media managers to a torrent of vile abuse?

James Whatley has asked some really important questions about how advertising will work in social spaces. I think he's missed the most important question of all - what do you do when people start rejecting your advertising and begin to sabotage your message?

How Not To Run An Interactive Advertising Campaign #TAP4offers

@edent — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:08:01 +0000

Public transport is a great way to assess the Zeitgeist. Watching commuters transition from iPhones to Samsungs, and from paper books to Kindles, really gives one a sense of how the world is changing. Advertising is also a great way to measure society; seeing lots of adverts for dodgy loan companies can give you an interesting idea about the direction of the economy.

I've been tracking the rise of QR codes in advertising for several years now. People keep asking me when NFC will take over for "boring" QR codes - based on the few live NFC examples I've seen in the UK, NFC will be trailing QR for several more years.

Let me talk you through TAP4offers' latest "effort".

The poster is fairly clear about what to expect - although I initially thought that I'd have to stretch to the top of the carriage to scan the NFC tag!

Thankfully, that's not the case. Beside every exit were these combined NFC / QR / SMS stickers. The NFC tag and QR code each had a unique tracking URL, so the owner of the service (Gunars Vucens) can see which method is being used the most. Judging from the URL and the printed information, I would guess each train carriage has a unique code.

Once the code is scanned - this happens.

What - as the kids say - The Fuck? I've no idea how much it costs to do a deal with South West Trains - but someone has wasted their money!

This is the same mistake that Clear Channel made on their QR/NFC posters.

Why bother with this? Seriously? What's the point of installing all these codes? They've been there for months - disappointing everyone who interacts with them.

Despite the advertiser's promise of a relaunch, nothing seems to be happening with these codes.

Logo Problems

As well as the general uselessness of the destination, there is another flaw with the service.

Firstly, there's yet another NFC logo! Proxima's report to the GSMA already identified half a dozen common logos. GSMA NFC Logo, NFC Forum's N-Mark, ClearChannel's NFC Mark, etc. etc.

So, overall, a pretty pathetic effort.

If NFC is to overcome its significant obstacles - price, hardware requirements, lack of public awareness - the campaigns underpinning it must be better than this.

Train Tickets With QR Codes

@edent — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:52:42 +0000

No, I'm not talking about Masabi's innovative technology, but of this rather odd bit of advertising found on the back of a train ticket. There's no specific call to action - but there's not much space to play with. Let's give it a scan...

sigh A non-mobile site. With an Adobe Flash plugin in the top right which won't work on any iPhones. Why on Earth do marketing companies insist on pointing phones to non-mobile sites. It really bemuses me. Stations rarely have good signal (too many people leads to local network congestion) and, besides, large sites are a right pig to use on a small screen.

Stats

I've blogged several times about using Bit.ly links in QR codes. With a little bit of hacking (adding at + character to the end of the URL) we can see how many people have been scanning the code.

I don't know how many of these tickets have been printed. That might be a really good conversion rate - but I doubt it. I only noticed the QR code because someone had dropped their ticket and it landed face-down. Realistically, how many people look at the back of their tickets?

The best campaign in the world would fail if it's not put in front of an audience.

IPEXPO and the Unscannable QR Code

@edent — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:56:09 +0000

I recently overheard two advertising executives discussing their latest QR campaign. I jotted down what they were saying...

Dave! Dave! I've got a brilliant idea!
What is it, Fred?
Let's make a QR code... right... but make it really hard to scan!
Brilliant idea, Fred! How?
We can stick it on a Taxi, so that you have to wait until it stops at a traffic light before you can scan it!
Ok, Fred, but I'm still concerned that the code will be too easy to scan.
Aha! That's why we invert the colours!
Fred, you're a genius. Let's go and club some baby seals to death.

I... just.... WHAT?

Did no one test this campaign? It's completely unreadable on the half dozen QR scanners I tried. Perhaps there is a mythical phone which can render it, but I doubt it. The campaign (for an event in October 2011) had a total of fifteen clicks.

Of those clicks, only 10 were from the QR code. Ten!

I took the liberty of inverting the code back to the correct colour layout. Unsurprisingly for such a hopeless code, IPEXPO's website isn't mobile friendly.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bang my head against a brick wall.

If you need a professional QR code consultation - please contact me. PLEASE!

British Transport Police - Pickpockets QR Code

@edent — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:24:01 +0000

Terence Eden specialises in helping organisations craft amazing QR campaigns. Contact Terence for a consultation

Wander around the London Underground and you're likely to see safety posters from the British Transport Police (BTP). This is the first one that I've seen with a QR code on it.

It's a fairly good poster. A good call to action, a URL in case your phone can't read QR codes, and the code itself is well sized and has a high level of error correction.

Scanning the code, however, leads to a rather disappointing user experience.

A non-mobile mobile site

Here's what the user sees when they land on the BTP's "mobile" site.

The site is incredibly poorly formatted. It is evidently not designed for mobile, nor has it been tested on a wide range of phones.

No viewport has been set, meaning most phones will show the site zoomed out.

The images are all fixed at 480px wide, so any phones with a smaller screen may have difficultly rendering the page.

The Videos

The videos themselves are well produced, but almost totally unsuitable for mobile. The videos are around 30 seconds long - yet weigh in at around 3.6MB!

Even on 3G, that's a a long wait for the file to download. On 2G? Forget it.

The files aren't streamed - they have to be downloaded. Finally, the resolution is fixed at 640*360, and so the videos are not adapted to each device's screen resolution.

Click To Call

If you are the police, you probably want people to be able to phone you. So the BTP place their phone numbers on their site. There's only one problem - you can't click on the number to call them! So, you're left in the annoying situation where you either have to remember the phone number, or borrow another phone to call them.

Making telephone numbers "click-to-call" is really easy. Literally, all you need to do is write

Call us on 0800 40 50 40

Hey presto! Users can click on your phone number and place a call from their mobile phone.

The Stats

As I discussed in an earlier post, using a URL shortner means that anyone can see your QR statistics!

So let's take a look at how the BTP have done.

At the moment, they're averaging 12 scans a day for this poster (I don't know if other posters have the same code - I suspect so). Naturally, iPhone is at the top of the scans, with BlackBerry following close behind.

Is this a good result? I don't know. If there was just a URL on there, how many visits would it get?

Making It Better

This is such a brilliant idea for a QR poster campaign. With only a little work, it can be made really useful for Londoners.

Create a responsive mobile site.
Use click-to-call for all phone numbers.
Optimise the videos for mobile download and viewing.
Consider streaming the videos - perhaps using a service like YouTube.

If you would like a bespoke QR consultation, contact me.

Kneel Before Your QR Master

@edent — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

You know what I love about the streets of London? The pavements are so clean. Many is the time I crawl around on my hands and knees - rubbing my trousers into the walkways of my beloved city. Hardly anyone kicks me up the arse, either.

You feel the same way too, don't you?

What? You don't? But... but....

What else could explain the advertising industry's love of putting QR codes as close to the floor as possible?

Be Careful What You Wish For

Of course, if going too low is bad...

Maplin's QR Code Mistakes

@edent — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:10:00 +0000

Maplin, the UK technology retailer, is experimenting with QR codes in its Tottenham Court Road store. It's a very mixed bag which deserves equal measures of praise and criticism.

Here's a typical product display stand with QR code placed on it.

There's no "call to action". Nothing to say what the code is, how I use it, or why I should scan it. Does it lead to a video demo? To a voucher? What?

But, that's not the worst of it. Notice how small it is? There's lots of space which could be used - instead it's barely 20mm across. That in itself wouldn't be too bad - except all these displays are about half-a-metre behind glass!

Even with my multi-megapixel cameraphone pushed right up against the window, I wasn't able to get a scan on these codes. I wonder if any phone on the market would be able to read them.

Luckily, I found one which was close enough to the glass for me to scan.

They've used a fairly short URL, so the code isn't too dense. I'm pleased to say it swiftly redirects to a mobile friendly site.

It's unfortunate that the first item I have scanned has an "out of stock" error. The rest of the mobile site is rather good.

Fixing The Mistakes

This campaign fails 3 of my 10 Commandments of QR Codes. Specifically

I. Your QR code shall be large enough and clear enough to scan easily. VII. Your QR code shall have a sufficient call to action. VIII. Your QR code shall be tested.

Don't Make The Same Mistakes

If you're considering a QR campaign contact me and arrange for a consultation. I work with companies large and small to help prevent you from making these sorts of mistakes.

Take Shelter from this Crap QR Code

@edent — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:05:37 +0000

To whoever is responsible for this QR code marketing monstrosity: go home.

Seriously, pack up the tools of your trade, go home, pour yourself a stiff drink, and weep at what you have done.

The Poster

Here's a fun game for all the family! Play "spot the QR code" on this poster...

Bzzzzzt! Time's up! Did ya see it? What? No! How could that be?

Let's zoom in...

There! Right beside the warnings of "mild peril" lurks the QR code. Tiny, overly dense, and with no call to action.

Try scanning it. To make things slightly easier, I've given you a straight shot of the code.

Not easy, is it?

The Contents

It's usually best to use a short URL in a QR code. The smaller the data, the less dense the QR code, the bigger you can print each individual square.

Let's look at what this code contains

http://www.findanyfilm.com/Take-Shelter-custom_film~39285?
   utm_source=sonypictures&
   utm_medium=QRcode&
   utm_campaign=takeshelter  Cinema_BookNow

A few things to note.

This code is ridiculously long.
Is all that tracking data really needed?
There is a space which hasn't been URL encoded as "%20"

The Site

Let's assume that you've seen the QR code. And that you've managed to scan it. And that your browser will open such a malformed URL. What reward awaits you? Something good, right?

Nope. This festering pile of shit.

A non-mobile site, flash heavy, poorly thought out, abomination of a site.

But, let's play along and try to find a screening near me.

Oh great. A pop-up.

So, no easy way to find a screening, see a trailer, or buy tickets. Just what is the point of this site?

If I were one for conspiracy theories, I'd say this marketing campaign was generated by someone who hates QR codes and wants them to fail. Putting Hanlon's razor in to action, I think this is more likely the work of someone who just doesn't understand what they are doing.

If you're interested in avoiding this sort of catastrophic blunder - give me a call. I can work with you to craft a QR campaign which doesn't suck.

Choosing a URL for your QR Code

@edent — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 07:57:00 +0000

When you create a QR code which contains a URL, it is vital that the code is not only as small as possible, but also as user friendly as possible.

I'm not a massive fan of short URL services like bit.ly - but for shrinking the text you want to fit in a QR code, they are invaluable.

I want to take a look at a particularly interesting example from Nat West Bank.

The Poster

Despite having the QR too close to the ground (more of that in a later blog post) this seems like quite a good campaign.

The QR code is large and clear, it's not too dense, and the copy shows the app is available on Android, iOS, and BlackBerry. A single scan on any device should redirect the user to the correct destination.

The Scan

This is where things start to fall apart.

The URL

I know some of the guys behind ScanBuy. It's a good service, but I don't think it's suited to this usage.

http://SCN.BY/9T7N6HN0RDQPUO

No "https". Users are being trained not to trust banking URLs unless they go via SSL. I wonder if people will notice on QR codes?
It's not a Nat West domain. How does a user know that this goes to the real app and not some mobile-malware?
Nonsensical path. At the very least, ScanBuy should let this be customised to scn.by/NatWestApp or similar. That way, people looking through their history will know what the URL is meant to go to. (See scanning while underground).

That said, the code does successfully redirect users to the correct app store to download the app.

What I Would Do

I would use a url like

https://natwest.com/GetApp

It's the same length as the previous, is human readable, and is secure. If Nat West can't run the redirection and analytics service themselves, it could easily redirect to ScanBuy to do the heavy lifting.

The Good

One thing to say, if a non-compatible device scans the code, they get taken to Nat West's mobile friendly site.

Advertising On The Kindle

@edent — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:10:46 +0000

It looks like the next big thing in Kindle-land is - depressingly - advertising subsidisation.

the world's first ad-supported Kindle, going on sale within Target and Best Buy locations for $114. That represents a gentle $25 savings compared to the price of today's cheapest Kindle, but those 2500 pennies don't come free -- you'll be asked to endure "advertisements on the bottom of the device's home page and on its screen savers."
Engadget

Can It Work?

On the strength of the current evidence - no.

Browsing on the Kindle's web browser is a slow and frustrating experience. It's slow at downloading, takes ages to render, and scrolling is a nightmare. That's ok - it's primarily a book; not a browser.

But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that advertisers just don't know how to advertise on this medium. Take a look at the crap that goes on in mobile advertising. Do you think that advertisers will have the wherewithal to make a Kindle-friendly advert?

Not even Amazon can make it work. Take a look at this.

While browsing on the Kindle, I spotted this banner advert. What struck me was that the advertiser had clearly target the Kindle - probably via User-Agent sniffing. Intrigued, I clicked on it, only to be greeted with this monstrosity. Yes - not even Amazon's store renders well on the Amazon Kindle. While the mobile version of the site may work, there would still be no way to buy the book. Even if it did, I'm in the UK and can't buy from the American store.

So, I ask again: If Amazon can't write a website which works well on a Kindle - what makes you think an advertiser can?

What Would Work?

Many years ago - I was in discussion with the people who almost got the Kindle on their mobile network. There were a number of different business models floated - many completely unsuitable - but some only waiting for the right time.

The hardware for the Kindle is (reasonably) expensive as an upfront cost.
Most customers are mathematically challenged

Would people buy the Kindle in the same way that they buy a phone? Give customers a £111 Kindle FREE! (on a £9.99 per month contract).

Of course, the missing piece of the puzzle is what you get for the £9.99. Amazon book tokens? Free OTA podcasts? Subscriptions to newspapers?

I don't have the answer - but I suspect Amazon wants to lower the cost of the hardware and increase the attach rate (number of Kindle books a user buys).

Why not do an offer similar to this.

Kindle costs £111
Comes with £200 worth of Amazon book tokens!
The Amazon vouchers are in the denomination of 2*£10, 6*£7.50, 20*£5, 35*£1
Or, perhaps the vouchers are in the form "50% off", "25% off", etc
Vouchers are provided to the user over 12 months
Vouchers expire after 3 months

The purchase price is all of a sudden much more palatable given the FREE vouchers. The discounts could probably be eaten by some publishers - or at least partially. The "risk" of buying an eBook is significantly reduced in the eyes of the customer - leading to an increased attach rate. Most customers aren't going to use the full value of the vouchers.

Just sticking on banner adverts for perfume seems so... lazy!

Amazon's Strengths

Amazon has a great record on "people who bought X also liked Y". Why not bring that to Kindle? Instead of this incredibility lame screen...

...why not recreate this page for the 21st century? Amazon has my credit card details and my address - they don't need advertising from third parties!

Finished reading Pride and Prejudice? Buy the DVD!
Enjoyed Brick Lane? Get this great balti dish set delivered to your door!
Wow! Oryx and Crake was pretty good huh? Download the sequel - The Year of the Flood

Subsidising the hardware cost with enforced banner adverts is a flabby and uninventive 1990's business model. It also places the Amazon brand at risk of a crappy user experience.

I don't think readers will welcome a turgid little banner for perfume. But I think they will embrace relevant and contextual advertising which adds value to their reading experience.

Wonga Mobile Adverts

@edent — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:41:21 +0000

I'll preface this by saying that Wonga's lawyers are far better than mine.

Wonga, the payday loan company, has found itself in a bit of hot water recently. They've had an Advertising Standards Authority adjudication against one of their adverts and they have raised the ire of Stella Creasy MP over their sponsorship of the Tube on New Years.

Even London's mayor has said

people should be aware of the extortionate rates of interest that they can charge and people should not enter into irrational or unwise debt obligations

Now, I'm not convinced that payday loan companies are bad per se. If you need a few hundred pounds to avoid being thrown out of your home, these companies can provide a service which traditional banks can't - or won't - provide. That said, taking out a loan is something which should not be done lightly - and should only be done with the full facts at your disposal.

That's why I'm confused by Wonga's latest advertising campaign on mobile. Here are three adverts that I've spotted recently.

None of them display the APR - even though there is sufficient room to do so. I suppose they could argue that they are advertising the Wonga Android App - not a loan. Therefore they don't need to display the APR. I'm not convinced that's a sound argument - more on that in a moment.

Within the marketplace description, there's no mention of the APR. Only one of the screenshots mentions the APR.

I've been taking a look at the CAP guidelines and recent adjudications, and the OFT FAQs on this subject and I'm left a little confused as to whether hiding the APR in this way is allowed.

Is it simply enough to say

"I'm not advertising [banned product] - I'm advertising an app that lets you get it."?

If so, I think the guidelines need to change.

Two Questions

Are Wonga in breach of the ASA and OFT codes governing advertising for financial products?
Does this trivialise money lending?

I'm not saying that Wonga are in breach of the rules. I don't even wish to raise a complaint against them. I will be asking the ASA and OFT for clarification on this matter.

As for the app itself, it's reasonably well crafted. While it's great that you can do so much with a phone, I remain a little uneasy about applying for complex financial products while on the bus. But perhaps I'm getting old. I'm sure that next year I'll be applying for a mortgage via a mobile website and not think it anything strange.

Now With Extra Irony

In one of those delightfully serendipitous moments, a Wonga advert popped up as I was reading Stella Creasy's tweets.

The Mechanic QR Code

@edent — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:33:23 +0000

Another day in London - another sighting of a QR code!

This time, on a poster for high-brow art-house flick The Mechanic.

Quite close to the bottom of the poster - so low, I had to kneel to scan it - is a QR code. Scan it and it takes you a mobile friendly trailer on YouTube.

Issues

It wouldn't be a Terence Eden blog post if I didn't criticise the approach taken by the advertisers.

QR code is far too low down - who wants to stoop to scan (other than nerds like me)?
No call to action. No one knows what this QR codes goes to until they scan it. You need to give someone an incentive to scan. Here's a very quick mock-up I've made to show how I think it should be.
Short URL - even if you do scan the code, you still have no way of knowing where it's going. The qrs.ly service is provided by QR Stuff who don't offer editable URLs. Their premium service does offer all sorts of statistics and other options. But for a customer facing code, a friendly URL would probably be better. http://qrs.ly/Trailer for example.

So, overall, great use of a QR code to direct people to the trailer - but a little more effort on the call-to-action would have made people much more likely to scan the code and view the trailer.

Mobile Badvertising: Groupon

@edent — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:23:04 +0000

I'm a big fan of Groupon - the money saving site - that's why I'm so disappointed with their latest campaign.

A nice simple set of banners.

Let's gloss over the missing apostrophe in this one though... Which leads to the Groupon mobile friendly site. Well formatted mobile site. Free text field for an email address and a drop down list of cities they support.

There's no notion of what they'll do with the email address - which is very naughty - but the worst is yet to come.

After filling in the form and clicking "Discover Deals" this is what the customer gets.

sigh So depressing. Why do this?

If you don't have a mobile friendly site, don't run a mobile advertising campaign.

Debenhams Don't Get QR Codes

@edent — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:55:45 +0000

After the derisory efforts of Waitrose to properly utilise QR codes, it's disheartening to see Debenhams make a brand new mistake.

At the bottom of tonight's Evening Standard is this advert from Debenhams.

Debenhams QR Advert

The QR code immediately caught my eye and - being the saddo that I am - I immediatley whipped out ZXing and scanned it in.

Debenhams QR Code

What goodies would it net me? A URL to visit their mobile site? Contact details for a Christmas order line?

db::LIST::static-0011445

Let me repeat that... "db::LIST::static-0011445"

Mean anything to you? Nope? Me neither. I even read it with another scanner to see if my phone was going bonkers. It was not.

"db::LIST::static-0011445" What on earth can that mean? It was then that I noticed the instructions next to the code.

Debenhams QR Instructions

What? Let me count the ways this is wrong...

What on earth does "shop the ad" mean? Is it a typo for "scan the ad"?
Roughly 5% of Debenhams customers have an iPhone - why is this restricted just to them?
I don't know how many people have already downloaded the Debenhams app - but fewer than 500 people have rated it. With an average rating of 3* - it's unlikely many more will grab it.

The customer interaction is currently "Do I have an iPhone (probably no). Have I installed the app (probably no). Can I install this 6.4MB app while I'm on the train (probably no). Now let me scan the advert."

What kind of response rate is that likely to get?

How They Should Have Done It

Here's how the code should work - in my opinion.

Point the code at http://m.debenhams.com/0011445 - that way, the 95% of phone which aren't iPhone will have somewhere to go. If there isn't a mobile Debenhams site - make it redirect to an advert hosted on YouTube.
If an iPhone visits that URL, check to see if they have the application installed. If they don't, redirect them to the iTunes store.

Pretty damn simple.

Remember - most of your customers don't have the same phone as all the cool kids in your marketing department. Not all your customers live and breath your brand - don't expect them to have your application on their phone.