There is a fact that is rarely talked about and which instead presents multiple reasons of interest. With the pandemic, the lockdown and the related explosion of digital we are witnessing a real explosion in the proposition and use of the QR Code.
The Qr Code first appeared in 1994. In 1999 the Japanese company that developed the technology releases the codes under an open license, which favors a certain diffusion, which is accompanied by the development of i-mode for mobile phones. But in reality its use remains relatively limited both from the supply side by companies, entities and organizations, and from the use by people, so much so that in 2012 l’inventore, Masahiro Hara, receiving an award, he said, “I hope many people use them, I’m sure they will find a useful way to do it.”
After first wave of the pandemic, while the world laboriously reopened, we have instead witnessed a boom in its use. From restaurant menus to supplementary newspaper content, as happens for La Stampa and La Repubblica, passing through the check-in of air flights, payments without contacts and the activation of the wifi connection, by now the diffusion in the use is really mass.
According to the data released by Scanova, an easy-to-use QR code generator which helps marketers create, design, manage and track QR codes for operational and promotional use cases, the worldwide increase in the use of the QR Code is truly significant and it is estimated that by 2022 the redemption of discount coupons through Qr Code will reach approximately 5.3 billion coupons.
As regards specifically our country, according to Statista data, in the third quarter of 2020 48.1% of Italians used / scanned the QR Code. It was only 6% in 2013.
The new communication processes that originate from the two-dimensional matrix of which the QR Code is composed greatly favor the creation of hypertext links between the real world and the online world, a sort of bridge that connects the two realities.
It took one pandemic, but the Qr Code will not disappear after the emergency: by now we have learned how to use them. For us marketers, the opportunities in their use are really as wide as they are interesting. If you haven’t started thinking about how to use them yet, go for it.
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