Australia’s Museum Tries Out QR Code Advertising For Discount Coupon

The fact that The Powerhouse Museum, in Sydney Australia, has started experimenting with usage of a QR Code for their promotions, is encouraging. It’s a sign that the far-reaching advantages of using QR Code is going to catch on with more people down under, regardless of industry, personality or background. As long as you have a mobile phone, there’s definitely a chance for you to make use of QR Codes in your life.

In July this year, Sydney’s The Powerhouse Museum placed a QR Code on the back of their catalogues. This is in line with their festive season promotion. So, here’s what happened. They’ve placed this QR Code on their catalogues which, when scanned with a QR Code scan-enabled mobile phone, will lead the viewer to a web page….a hidden one…with a special discount voucher! Brilliant…their scheme is brilliant because this is an experiment. They would want to know how many people actually made use of the QR Code that they’ve printed on the catalogue and by tracking the number of people who went into the web page alone will tell you how many people actually scanned the QR Code. Web users will not have access to the hidden web page with the discount coupon. We’re assuming that they had a separate web page for web surfers who wanted to get their hands on the discount coupon.

The result shows that it drew in only a trickle of people because, as we all know, the people in Sydney are not really into the whole QR Code thing….YET. The rate of QR Code usage in Australia is generally low. And not a lot of people own iPhones or QR Code enabled phones YET, so, it’s great to have a-hundred-and-forty-four people actually going into the hidden web page.

What’s interesting is that a museum in Australia have caught on and it’s just so interesting because of the issue of time….as in, museum (old), QR Code (modern, new, futuristic) and we applaud the people behind the museum’s marketing and promotions for trying this out. Anyway, it costs them nothing more than what they would have had to pay for the printing of the season catalogue.

The Powerhouse Museum, despite the low usage of the QR Code, is going to try to experiment more with the use of QR Code promotional events. In a couple of years, many Sydney people will own QR Code enabled phones and by then, everyone will be, literally, using QR Codes for everything. By test-driving this marketing method now, they’re putting themselves ahead in the industry.