Chapter 2
Nobody Likes Them
Not Even Your Lost Pet
Nobody likes QR codes.
Unless you sell them to your clients, unless you just paid to have one added to your copy, unless you just downloaded a code reader and still haven't figured out just how frustrating they are—nobody likes them.
And nobody likes you using them. Not even your lost pet.
The product above is a QR code pet tag designed to help you find your lost pet.
The tag, when scanned, takes you to contact information for your lost dog or cat. At first glance, that seems like a good idea, right? We all want to make sure our precious lost pug or psycho cat is found. (Seriously, there are about 80 known breeds of cats, and this is the one they chose? The hairless cat of Satan?)
Let me break this down for you.
- Eighty-five percent of people have a cell phone.
- Fifty percent of phones are capable of scanning a QR code.
- Seventeen percent of people have scanned a QR code.
- Fifty percent were successful and would scan a QR code again.
This means that 3.6 percent of people scan QR codes.
Ninety-nine percent of people can call a phone number with their phone (1 percent variance).
How about we try something else on the tag? Like a phone number.
No one ever looked at a 10-digit phone number and didn't know what to do with it.
I understand ...
