Red Bull and Continental Airlines are among the marketers whose QR code efforts stumbled in 2011, while Starbucks and Tesco offered examples of the right way to do a QR code effort.

QR codes and other 2D mobile bar codes are quickly catching on with marketers in Europe and the United States because of their ability to drive consumers to specific content. However, some marketers are crippling their QR code campaigns with simple mistakes such as scans that take users to a dead URL.

?QR codes are an emerging technology,? said Mike McGuinness, vice president of sales at QRblaster.com, Santa Rosa Beach, FL. ?Marketers are gravitating to QR codes because they are an instant response mechanism and a great way to catch people on the go.

?Marketers can leave a bad taste in a person?s mouth if the code doesn?t do what it is supposed to do,? he said. ?You don?t want to hurt your brand by leaving the person hanging for whatever reason.

?This is part of the process of an early technology ? some marketers are going to make some mistakes in the early days,? he said. ?They are still learning.?

Access denied
Other mistakes marketers commonly make in their QR code campaigns include not including a call-to-action, codes with no instructions and lengthy URLs.

For example, Red Bull put a QR code on a campaign in subway stations where there was no phone signal to access the online content.

?It sounds like QR 101 but it is amazing how many codes we see that just plain refuse to scan,? Mr. McGuinness said. ?Much like an ashtray on a motorcycle, a non scannable code is just plain worthless.?

Continental/United Airlines put QR codes on in-flight magazines inside its planes, which meant the codes could not be accessed during flight, only directly before and after a plane took off. In addition, when the code was scanned, it took people to a page that was mostly covered by a pop-up window.

While the idea behind the QR code effort was good ? linking to air miles without having to log-on to online accounts ? the execution was lacking.

?The airlines threw a lot of money out there to try to do the latest thing, then had a Web designer made something that was not mobile optimized, in fact impossible to use on a mobile phone,? Mr. McGuinness said. ?These things need to be simple to use.?

Another example of how marketers failed in their QR code strategies this year include a QR code on the Washington Redskins Facebook page that required a proprietary scanner, meaning most people only saw text.

Additionally, Esquire Magazine recently placed a code right where the mailing label gets adhered.

Getting it right
Some of the best examples of QR code campaigns include grocery chain Tesco?s use of QR codes on billboards featuring their products in South Korea subway stations so that people could scan items they were interested in and have the groceries delivered to their homes.

Starbucks Coffee partnered with Lady Gaga on a digital scavenger hunt that consumers could activate by scanning a QR code posted in participating Starbucks stores nationwide or online.

Another example of how QR codes are being put to good use comes from the real estate industry. QRBlaster provides a way for realtors to generate a QR code tied to a specific listing, which they can use in their print and other marketing collateral to instantly connect an interested consumer with the information they are looking for.

One of the challenges marketers face is that QR codes can be in circulation for a long period of time, maybe longer than the promotion a specific effort was designed for lasts.

?Marketers don?t know how long QR codes are going to be out there so they need a way to make sure the codes continue to direct people to a live URL,? Mr. McGuinness said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York