Your Brand Is Misusing QR Codes

The pandemic was the worst, just an absolute soul-sucking period of time for most…unless you were a QR code. If you were a QR code, it was life-saving CPR that resuscitated you from the depths of the afterlife.

I am going to assume if you're reading this, that you indeed are not a QR code, but you most likely now use them daily and deploy them in your business in some capacity.

The issue is that most brands are using QR codes incorrectly, especially when it comes to their packaging.

Too many brands are approaching QR codes as a way to give more information to their customers instead of a way of collecting more information from their customers.

First-party data is the biggest unlock for a brand and expediting the collection process through QR codes is something all brands should be deploying on their packaging, shelf talkers, and in-store displays.

Most QR codes on CPG products (I try and scan everyone I see in the wild) will take the customer to their website or a landing page to give more information about the product.

I think this works for a brand where the value proposition can be expanded on with the customer having more information about it.

Think single-origin coffee beans or a bean-to-bar chocolate bar, enabling a consumer to track the journey or learn more about the farming process, is a true value add to the customer which enables your brand to command a higher price tag and provide more value to the customer.

The issue is when a QR code just takes the customer to a site, social media channel, or general information page which I have been seeing a lot of lately. This doesn’t really move the needle for the consumer and is a waste of space on your packaging.

When you sell your product to a distributor or retailer, the fight for transparency has started for your brand. You’re constantly requesting sales data and updated store counts so that you can have some sense of control of your brand in retail.

Then there are promotions. Whether it’s a planned promotion or an IRC campaign, most brands just look at the lift from those in-store campaigns to measure success, but those numbers don’t show you who actually bought the product. The retailer still owns that first-party data, mostly through their rewards programs.

QR codes offer a brand-friendly solution for this. They give you the ability to own the customer data outside of just your owned sales channels like your website.

Let’s walk through how I would approach QR codes if I were running a CPG brand in 2023.

• Enhancing the post-purchase experience - This is information similar to our coffee bean example that provides customers with more details that enhance their purchasing experience with your brand. My morning eggs from Vital Farms have this link to see their farm, which is an amazing consumer experience, but a simple QR code would make this seamless and would increase the amount of traffic to this page if I could simply scan it with my phone.

I think this is a great retention mechanism too, understanding that every time I buy my eggs, I will be able to see a new farm and different chickens. I think this could work for any brand that owns its manufacturing or farming practices. Why not give your customers a peek into the process?

• Post-purchase customer surveys - Your brand needs to prioritize first-party data collection on your packaging. Post-purchase surveys are the easiest way to do this and make the customer feel heard. There are hundreds of form companies, I am just highlighting a WeStock form below that one of our brand partners is using. This enables you to not only collect feedback on the customer but also get their contact and preferred store information. Making it easy for you to activate that customer in that store at a future date.

• Online subscriptions and discounts - Owning the customer journey online and in-store is imperative. Having an option for in-store customers to scan and get enrolled into online subscriptions or unlock an online offer, allows you to approach in-store activations as a product trial arm to ultimately get that customer to subscribe online where your margins are healthier. This obviously works best outside of the beverage and frozen categories where online ordering is expensive. You also don’t want to fully cannibalize your in-store business or sour that retail relationship, so it is equally important to push that customer back in-store for promotions and other in-store initiatives you have planned. Having that level of first-party data at scale unlocks an equilibrium for your brand that few have achieved.

  

• IRCs - The last use case I want to highlight are IRCs (instant redeemable coupons). These are great generators for product trial and also a helpful tool to move product that is coming up on their expiration date. The biggest drawback is that you don’t have visibility into who is redeeming them at the store level. You are better off using a QR code that links to a promotion you own. An example would be enabling the customer to scan, have a keyword populate to a number, and have them text that keyword to that number you own to get the offer. You can then redeem the customer via Venmo/Paypal. There are a few companies playing in this space and this is something we recently launched at WeStock, and the results have been fascinating to track. We then have a profile on that shopper and the brand knows exactly who is buying their product.

Although covid was a lifeline for QR codes, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is using them correctly. Hopefully, some of these examples spark some creativity in how you approach this tool moving forward.

Sidenote: This is the first post where I highlighted some benefits of WeStock. I don’t want this to become a marketing tool for WeStock and definitely want it to be its own separate entity. With that being said, there will be crossover from time to time and hopefully, it doesn’t come off “salesy” because that is not my intention with this outlet. Thanks!