Pork marketing – does this QR code experience bring home the bacon?

I was cooking some sausages the other day and I spotted a QR code on the packet, but I’m not sure the experience lived up to my expectations. So the question is, when using a QR code, what tactics bring home the bacon?

This quirky QR code on my sausages caught my eye, so I scanned it

This important thing about a QR code I think, is that it appears interesting and enticing enough in the first place to scan. Much like direct mail hitting the doormat, it needs to make an immediate impact and grab your interest. I think there are a few things from the pork marketing that worked.

Why I scanned this code

To entice me to scan your QR code, you would need some of the following.

1. Location, location, location

This code stood out. I don’t see so many QR codes on food and, when I do, it tends to be on the back of the packaging surrounded by other copy and images. This was on the front on its own, so it stood out and got my attention.

2. Design

Essentially QR codes are meaningless nonsense to the human eye. They don’t have a face or any kind of meaning on their own, so how they are positioned and what surrounds them makes a big impact. This code was nicely designed, the pig was saying several things to me – rare bread, farming, sauges, bacon, nom-nom-nom!

3. Call to action

So I noticed your sticker and like the design of your pig. Now what? A nice simple call to action – “scan me” –  sealed the deal and got me to fire up the app on my smart phone and see where I ended up.

You’re only half way there

So far so good but getting me onto your website is only half the battle – what are you going to do with me now I’m on your website? As it turns out, not so much:

This is the page I landed on once I scanned the code

That’s right – not a sausage!

Although it is optimised for mobile (albeit only in portrait), I think this page is a let down because it doesn’t have that much to do with the product I purchased. Now I know that is more work – a different code for each product type – but Waitrose is a premium brand and I was expecting a premium digital experience. I didn’t get that.

Also, the mechanics of the page are geared only to mobiles. So if share this page with a desktop user they will be hampered. As I write this post I’m struggling to navigate to the sausage content I’m after because I can’t switch to a desktop version. (Grrr!)

Here’s what I could have won

I wanted sausage content beause I’d scanned a code on a packet of sausages. They had sausage content! Including a picture of some lovely bangers and an “interesting fact”,

“The world’s longest sausage weighed 15.5 tonne and was 35 miles long.”

Although, they are not quite right as the world’s longest sausage was 36.75 miles long.

Conclusion

They are good at getting my attention but Waitrose let themselves down with their landing page – It lacked relevance to what I scanned, wasn’t very well optimised, didn’t utilise call to actions (not even social sharing) and they hadn’t checked their facts. For me, a premium product with a value range digital experience.

What do you think?

Have you seen a QR code that brings home the bacon?