How Are Things Picking Up In The Land Down Under?

Despite having being made available more or less a decade ago, the QR Code technology is still a little slow in picking up in Australia. Laments one QR Code fan in Australia, ‘I don’t see why and how people find it so hard to accept and use. If advertisers knew how incredibly useful QR Codes can be (and how cheap it is to use), they should be jumping into the bandwagon by now, wouldn’t you think?’

It’s true. We say the same thing for the US of A, as well.

In Japan, QR Codes can be found just about everywhere and it has consumed the consumers and transformed brand names. They are printed on everything, including business cards, on TV ads, product packaging, websites, blogs, in newspapers, magazines, posters, mail and stickers. About five years ago, a survey concluded that more than half of the population of Japanese have used QR Codes before and will continue to use QR Codes because they found it very useful. However, despite how prevalent the technology is in Japan, it found little momentum in other countries.

Except for some parts of Europe (especially in the UK), advertisers and consumers appear….fearful?

The first sign of Australians using QR Code was, notably, Telstra’s ‘Are you QRious’ campaign which drew a lot of attention from some of us who were truly waiting to see how it would fare amongst the locals. It happened in June, we remember, last year and despite having introduced the technology one year ago, it seems as though there has not been much progress.

But there have been some small businesses who are dipping their toes into the water simply because it’s a cheap way to test the market out but other than that, there’s no big news from big Australian brand names. Many bloggers chime in saying that the main reason QR Code campaigns can’t kick off in Australia is because it’s just too cumbersome to download, install, test-drive the QR Code readers and learn the whole system.

Despite the technological barrier and skepticism from consumers and advertisers alike, there is a sense of wonder in the country and one day, maybe one day SOON, QR Code follow in UK’s footsteps.