Marks & Spencer, we wrote earlier, have started adopting the QR Code technology because they have started printing the barcode onto their products. One such instance would be the labels of their juices. It is interesting to note that it is an incredible way to let customers know exactly....yes, we mean EXACTLY where the fruit that was used to make the fruit juices came from. At this point in time, the barcodes merely led to some rather....plain information. Something you could have found out about back home, in front of a personal computer, languidly clicking the mouse.

As have said in the past, it is crucial that we capture the market better because we want to incite excitement and coolness and let consumers associate it with usefulness or uniqueness or something totally mind-blowing. But this is not the case right now.

It is true that a lot of other companies are not maximizing the full potential of QR Codes either and Marks and Spencer is not the only guilty one but imagine what good it would do for the company and brand if they made more use of QR Code.

A company like Marks & Spencer is a company that focused on quality, freshness, originality and uniqueness of their products – their customers are people who are willing to pay a buck or two more for the quality that they think they are getting. The tea is sourced from a place that helped poor people make a living, the jam is made from strawberries or fruits from a country that did not use artificial chemical for festicide....whatever it is, the customers will find it intriguing to find out more about the product.

We do not have it over here right now because the launch was focused on the UK market but a friend of a friend of a friend did and it seems that the page that he was led to was a voucher page for future purchases. The QR Code voucher can be used to get a thirty-percent discount off some cake bar...

To be fair to the campaign, they have information about juice but not exclusively about the Marks and Spencer juice and nothing about the source of the juice – but it was more about the health benefits of consuming XX glasses of juices a day. Aesthetically, the pages could benefit from a bit more work, some said.

Good effort but we hope to see better effort in the future.