The Value of QR Codes: The Simplest Way to Make Any Screen Interactive
For years, QR codes were a punchline in marketing circles: clunky squares nobody scanned, because scanning one meant finding and installing a special app first. That changed when phone makers built QR scanning into the camera itself. Today, scanning a code is as simple as pointing your phone at it, and people do it every day to read a restaurant menu, board a flight or pay for parking.
That small change turned the QR code into one of the most useful tools in advertising. It is the simplest way to make something that cannot be clicked, clickable.
A bridge from any screen to the phone
Most of the places people see ads cannot take an action. A TV commercial cannot take an order. A billboard cannot collect an email address. A magazine page cannot play a demo video. The viewer has to remember the brand, pick up a phone, search for it and find the right page, and most of them never do.
A QR code collapses all of that into one step. The viewer points their phone at the code and lands exactly where the advertiser wants them: a product page, a sign-up form, a video, a store locator, a checkout. The interest that the ad created is captured right away, while it is still there.
And the phone is the right place to land. It is where people browse, where their accounts are logged in and where their payment details are saved. Anything that is awkward to do with a TV remote or impossible to do with a poster is easy on a phone.
It works almost everywhere
Because the code is just an image, it works on any surface that can show one:
- Connected TV and streaming, including on devices that cannot run interactive ads
- Linear and broadcast TV, where no other form of interactivity is possible
- Out-of-home: billboards, transit, stadium screens and in-store displays
- Print: magazines, direct mail and catalogs
- Packaging and products: instructions, reorders, recipes, warranties
- Live events and venues: menus, tickets, sponsor activations
No integration with the TV platform, the publisher or the device is required. If the viewer can see it, they can scan it.
Every scan is a signal
A QR code is also one of the few ways to measure what offline media actually does.
Traditional TV, print and outdoor campaigns are measured mostly by estimated reach: how many people might have seen the ad. A scan is different. It is a real person, at a real moment, choosing to engage. Give each placement its own code, one per network, daypart, city or creative, and you can see which ones drive action and which do not.
What happens after the scan adds even more: which option the viewer chose, what they browsed, whether they signed up or bought. That is first-party data that viewers volunteer themselves, collected with their participation rather than through tracking.
Getting QR codes right
A QR code is only as good as its execution. A few practices make the difference:
- Give viewers time. On TV and video, keep the code on screen long enough for someone to notice it, pick up a phone and scan. A code that flashes by for two seconds will barely be used.
- Make it big and clear. Use strong contrast, leave a quiet border around the code, and size it for the distance people will scan from: across a living room, across a street.
- Say what happens next. "Scan to shop this look" or "Scan for the full menu" beats a bare code. People scan when they know what they will get.
- Build for the phone. The page behind the code must load fast and work perfectly on mobile. A slow desktop page wastes every scan.
- Make the first screen worth it. Land viewers on exactly what the ad promised, not on a homepage they have to search.
- Earn trust. Scammers have started using fake QR codes to send people to phishing sites. Use a recognizable domain for your links, and never ask for sensitive information on the first screen.
- Use dynamic codes. A code that points to a redirect you control lets you change the destination, fix mistakes and track scans without reprinting or re-editing the ad.
Beyond a link: QR codes that open an experience
Most QR codes lead to a single web page. That is useful, but it treats the code as a shortcut to a URL. The bigger opportunity is to treat it as the start of an interactive experience.
That is what VideoStorm builds. ScanStorm puts any QR code on steroids: whether the code appears on CTV, linear TV, a restaurant menu or a billboard, it takes viewers to an interactive VideoStorm menu where they can choose exactly what they want to see or do. ForeCaster lets advertisers schedule a shoppable QR code to appear at any point in a video, alongside the product on screen, taking viewers directly to purchase.
Combined with formats that run on the screen itself, QR codes are a key part of what makes TV advertising interactive. We wrote more about where that is heading in Why Interactive CTV Advertising Is the Future of TV Ads.
Want to turn your next campaign's QR code into something viewers actually want to scan? Get in touch.