I’ve sometimes wondered whether regular people use the QR Codes that are displayed in magazine ads and posters, or on-screen during TV shows that are trying (too hard?) to be cool.  Generally speaking, advertisers and TV production companies do not use these two dimensional matrix barcodes in interesting ways.  They typically simply encode a URL for a web-site.

For me, this quote from one Kelli Robertson, sums it up perfectly,

“Very few people want to visit your corporate website to begin with. Fewer want to do it when they’re out in the world or reading a magazine.”

I’m pretty sure most people don’t make any effort at all to decode QR codes in ads or TV shows, even if they have a smartphone with the relevant app installed. First, because it’s too much effort. Second, because they strongly suspect the code is not going to tell them anything they want to know.