QR Codes

4 Innovative Pop Culture QR Code Campaigns We Love

October 29, 2024
5 min read

QR codes are the unlikely trendsetters of this decade. Their popularity kicked off during the pandemic when they provided no-contact alternatives for items like restaurant menus and shipping boxes. These funky scannable squares soon found their way into pop culture. Artists on Spotify integrated them into publicity and outreach; fashion companies incorporated them into bespoke murals, and celebrities embraced them in social media and business endeavors. 

QR codes have endured for practical and cultural reasons. At first, they mirrored the radical new normal ushered in by the pandemic. Then they prevailed as symbols of an era. Phones and technology govern our day-to-day interactions, social media makes previously untouchable public figures accessible, and the intersection between art, commerce, and technology is at a new peak. 

But the bedrock of QR codes' zeitgeist appeal is their functionality. Dynamic QR codes make sharing information effortless. They bridge the gap between online and offline marketing strategies, scale easily, and can flex in real time to meet consumer needs. They also offer valuable insights into audience behavior via user metric reports. It’s no wonder everyone from pop stars to corporations have embraced them. 

To celebrate the QR code’s versatility and prevalence, here are four of our favorite QR code campaigns in pop culture and why they work. 

Taylor Swift’s QR code campaign for her new album

Taylor Swift is almost as famous for her marketing chops as she is for her songwriting. The publicity accompanying her most recent album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was no exception. A week before the album's release, Swift’s team plastered giant murals containing QR codes onto buildings throughout US cities and 13 other global locations. When scanned, each mural revealed a clue about the upcoming album. 

Swift’s team employed dynamic QR codes so they showed different information as the week progressed. Over time, fans pieced together the information from the various destinations. Eventually, the campaign revealed the name of her single, “Fortnight.” 

Why this QR code campaign excels

Swift’s QR code marketing campaign was a slice of marketing genius for several reasons:

  • It’s omnichannel marketing at its finest: QR codes can bridge the gap between online and offline channels. Swift took advantage of that to get people on the ground to go online and create buzz. The scavenger-hunt setup of the campaign also encouraged fans to compare notes on social media, further increasing pollination between channels.
  • It raised brand loyalty: One of Swift’s calling cards is dropping Easter eggs in her songs. Using QR codes as part of a large-scale scavenger hunt, she fed into her fans’ hopes and expectations to solidify their ongoing loyalty.
  • It used personalized dynamic QR codes: Swift’s campaign showed different content to scanners depending upon where they were based and the time it was scanned. This personalized element drew fans in, making it feel like they were part of a global mystery. The dynamic QR codes also allowed Swift’s team to gather data-driven insights into audience behavior that can help build future campaigns.

We love how this QR code campaign demonstrated a master level of marketing awareness. Swift utilized every salient feature of the QR code–its accessibility, dynamism, and creativity–to raise publicity, engage her followers, and grow her audience. 

QR code screen

QR code campaigns in the football stadium

Another indicator of QR codes’ growing popularity is their presence at sporting events. The cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase made headlines with its Superbowl commercial featuring a neon-colored QR code bouncing around a black screen. This campaign resulted in the company’s landing page receiving over 20 million hits in a minute. The campaign shined by capturing viewer’s attention and driving their curiosity with a minimalist approach.

Of course, most companies won’t be purchasing Super Bowl ad space. However, QR code campaigns can light up stadiums in other ways. The University of Central Florida bucked tradition when its football team replaced the numbers on players’ jerseys with QR codes. Scans led viewers to a page with the player’s biography.

These campaigns employed several smart marketing strategies:

  • Expert application of marketing attribution: Marketing attribution is the process of using data-driven analytics to identify which marketing techniques work best. When it comes to TV commercials, it’s hard to measure success because the medium lacks data-collection abilities. By incorporating QR codes, CoinBase turned that paradigm on its head. Each scan provided key insights into audience behavior. The same logic applies to UCF’s campaign, which provided real-time insight on fan’s interests.
  • Innovating traditional marketing techniques: The Super Bowl is famous for its mega-flashy commercials, and football players have always worn numbers on their backs. These organizations overturned tradition by advertising a super-simple image and replacing players’ numbers with QR codes. This appealed to new, younger audiences without losing the loyalty of older ones.
  • Driving user engagement with interactive content: Football and technology trends don’t necessarily go together. These campaigns succeeded because the organizations already had audience buy-in. In the first, football fans maximized their entertainment levels. In the second, they learned more about a team they care about. In both cases, the interactive content drove audience engagement levels.

These two campaigns excel at demonstrating QR codes’ versatility. Because people spend so much time on their phones–even at a live event–QR codes can capture a user’s attention and convert passive onlookers to active consumers. 

Katy Perry’s QR code tattoos

Katy Perry recently made headlines with two QR code campaigns to promote her new album. Unlike Swift, Perry relied on an uber-personal version of the QR code: a tattoo. 

When Perry walked the red carpet at the VMAs, she showed off a QR code tattoo on her lower back. When scanned, the tattoo led to a pre-save website for her upcoming album. A few weeks later, Perry again modeled a QR code. This time, she flashed it on her palm at a Balenciaga fashion show. When scanned, the QR code led to a page with merchandise for her album.

Why this QR code campaign shines

It’s unclear whether Perry’s tattoo is a dynamic QR code or a static one. (It’s also unclear if the inks are permanent or not.)  In either case, anyone following her lead would do well to take advantage of a dynamic QR code. This means that the URL destination can change, and the owner of the QR code can direct users to new, meaningful content as their brand or product evolves. 

In Perry’s case, she could leverage the tattoo to promote her next album (or any other cause she wants to draw attention to). A more general take away from her QR code tattoo is its novelty. A QR code tattoo creates a great marketing hook. By literally branding herself with this funky black-and-white square, Perry took the concept of a personal brand to a whole new level. She collapsed the boundaries between her image and music, leading to more press and more exposure for her music. 

SiteDetour offers dynamic QR codes to help organizations boost their marketing efforts. Our platform allows you to quickly and easily set up personalized, dynamic QR codes that can:

  • Track user metrics: Dynamic QR codes grant valuable insights into audience behavior including location, time scanned, device used, preferred language, and more.
  • Offer real-time updates: Keep your audience informed by updating the QR code’s destination page with news, alerts, and other relevant information.
  • Build your audience: Target engagement with customized QR code destinations based on user demographics.

To learn more about SiteDetour’s products, contact us for a demo or get started with a free trial.

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URL Redirect Link Management
QR Codes

4 Innovative Pop Culture QR Code Campaigns We Love

April 3, 2023
5 min read
Zebra in a QR code suit

A redirect is a tool used by websites for “rerouting” or sending a visitor to an alternative webpage. An example of a redirect would be when you type “example.com” in your web-browser, but are taken to a different website, like “new-example.com.”

URL redirects are an extremely common practice employed by webmasters and content managers to ensure visitors to their website are reaching their desired content.

When would I use a redirect?

  1. A page has been relocated within your site
    Let’s say your website has a page by the path “/t-shirts” – The “t-shirts” page has been a part of your website sitemap for years, and is one of your most frequently visited pages. Suddenly, you need to build out a more general page on your site that has t-shirts, and dress shirts. Your goal is to have the new page be accessible by a shorter, more general path, like “/shirts”. In this situation, you would want to use a URL redirect to ensure that traffic for the page “/t-shirts” is successfully rerouted to the new “/shirts” page of your website. Without a redirect in place, you could run the risk of visitors still accessing the old /t-shirts page, even though you want to drive all traffic to the new /shirts page. Due to the nature of SEO, it’s possible that there are many links throughout the Internet that still point visitors to the old URL, and it is the job of the URL redirect to ensure visitors still make it to the appropriate page.
  2. Your domain name is changing!
    Changing a website’s domain name is a drastic decision which must be handled with the utmost care. Let’s say your website has always been www.abc-brand.com. Due to a rebranding effort, you are changing your brand from “ABC” to “XYZ”, and thus your website’s URL will need to be adjusted to reflect the change. In this scenario, it would be critical that you 301 redirect all traffic requesting “abc-brand.com” to the new and improved “xyz-brand.com”. Furthermore, you would want to ensure that all pages within the abc-brand website are also redirected, like abc-brand.com/my-page being redirected to xyx-brand.com/my-page
  3. You have alternative domains that you wish to serve as “shortcuts” into your website
    It is a common practice for businesses to buy dozens of domain names that:
  • Are spelled similarly to their business name – consider “gogle.com” that redirects to google.com
  • Are variations of their name that visitors may otherwise know them as – consider “joes-tees.com” that redirects to the main business website, “joes-shirts.com”
  • Are shortened, easily typed versions of the primary domain name – consider “shirtsale2019.com” redirecting to “joes-shirts.com”. It is common to find this shorter, more memorable URL variation on physical advertisements because people are more likely to remember them. As such, a URL redirect would be used to reroute the alternative domain name to your primary domain name of your website.

How does a redirect actually work?

When you request a web-page from your browser, there is a server somewhere on the Internet that is receiving your request and responding with the appropriate content. Fundamentally, a redirect occurs when a web-server's response contains a special piece of data (an HTTP response header) instructing the browser to reroute the visitor to an alternative location.

The technical details aside, a browser works by requesting a URL and rendering the page that is returned by the website. If the website wishes the user to be redirected, the server will respond differently than if it was serving a page; it will send an extra piece of data indicating that the visitor should be redirected to a specified location.

Without going into too much of the technical details – a redirect is a behavior performed by a web-browser whenever it receives a response containing a flag (an HTTP header) to do so.

What are the types of redirects available?

301 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “permanent” redirect.

Indicates to search-engines and web-browsers that the requested page has permanently relocated to a new location.

Note: permanent redirects are often cached by web-browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Therefore, it may be tricky to retroactively update a 301 redirects target location once it has been established. Any visitors who have already received the 301 redirect response for a URL will likely be served a cached response from their web-browser when visiting the same URL again.

Suggestion Only use a 301 redirect when you know that the target location will not change.

Common Uses

  • A 301 redirect is appropriate when a website is changing it’s domain name. In this scenario, the site should be 301 redirecting all traffic for it’s old domain name to the new website URL.
  • Another common use-case for a 301 redirect is for pages within your website that have been permanently moved to a new URL

302 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “temporary” redirect.

Useful for general-purpose redirects within your website, where you do not want visitor’s to cache the redirect response permanently.

Suggestion Use 302 redirects for pages that have changed URL, but are subject to be updated in the future

Common Uses

  • A page is temporarily being moved to a new URL
  • Conditions where the destination location of the redirect is subject to change
  • Navigating the user away from a page during an error

307 Redirect

Uncommon due to legacy browser support

Used for technical scenarios when a visitor’s HTTP request method should be persisted when they are redirected. For example, if a user submits a form, the browser normally issues a POST request to the form’s action URL. If the server responds with a 302 redirect response, the client’s web-browser would typically issue a GET request when handling the redirect. However, if the server responds with a 307 redirect response, the client’s web-browser will POST request to the redirect destination. Please note, form-data is typically lost when redirecting via POST request.

When do I need a redirect?

The most common use-cases that would require a redirect are:

  1. Changing your domain name
  2. Restructuring website pathing, resulting in URL changes for content within your website
  3. URL shortening – having a shorter, more memorable alternative to your primary domain name.
  4. Sending traffic from additional/alternative domain names (Example: gogle.com redirects to google.com)
  5. Sending traffic from your DNS zone apex / naked domain name to your “www” sub-domain (Example: domain.com 301 redirects to www.domain.com)

Important considerations when redirecting a URL

  1. Ensure your URL supports HTTPS connections! Otherwise you may have visitors who are receiving broken links.
  2. When redirecting a specific path within your website, you may want to match paths based on a pattern or Regular Expression, as opposed to a single path.
  3. Seriously consider whether you should use a 301 or a 302, based on the information above.

QR codes are the unlikely trendsetters of this decade. Their popularity kicked off during the pandemic when they provided no-contact alternatives for items like restaurant menus and shipping boxes. These funky scannable squares soon found their way into pop culture. Artists on Spotify integrated them into publicity and outreach; fashion companies incorporated them into bespoke murals, and celebrities embraced them in social media and business endeavors. 

QR codes have endured for practical and cultural reasons. At first, they mirrored the radical new normal ushered in by the pandemic. Then they prevailed as symbols of an era. Phones and technology govern our day-to-day interactions, social media makes previously untouchable public figures accessible, and the intersection between art, commerce, and technology is at a new peak. 

But the bedrock of QR codes' zeitgeist appeal is their functionality. Dynamic QR codes make sharing information effortless. They bridge the gap between online and offline marketing strategies, scale easily, and can flex in real time to meet consumer needs. They also offer valuable insights into audience behavior via user metric reports. It’s no wonder everyone from pop stars to corporations have embraced them. 

To celebrate the QR code’s versatility and prevalence, here are four of our favorite QR code campaigns in pop culture and why they work. 

Taylor Swift’s QR code campaign for her new album

Taylor Swift is almost as famous for her marketing chops as she is for her songwriting. The publicity accompanying her most recent album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was no exception. A week before the album's release, Swift’s team plastered giant murals containing QR codes onto buildings throughout US cities and 13 other global locations. When scanned, each mural revealed a clue about the upcoming album. 

Swift’s team employed dynamic QR codes so they showed different information as the week progressed. Over time, fans pieced together the information from the various destinations. Eventually, the campaign revealed the name of her single, “Fortnight.” 

Why this QR code campaign excels

Swift’s QR code marketing campaign was a slice of marketing genius for several reasons:

  • It’s omnichannel marketing at its finest: QR codes can bridge the gap between online and offline channels. Swift took advantage of that to get people on the ground to go online and create buzz. The scavenger-hunt setup of the campaign also encouraged fans to compare notes on social media, further increasing pollination between channels.
  • It raised brand loyalty: One of Swift’s calling cards is dropping Easter eggs in her songs. Using QR codes as part of a large-scale scavenger hunt, she fed into her fans’ hopes and expectations to solidify their ongoing loyalty.
  • It used personalized dynamic QR codes: Swift’s campaign showed different content to scanners depending upon where they were based and the time it was scanned. This personalized element drew fans in, making it feel like they were part of a global mystery. The dynamic QR codes also allowed Swift’s team to gather data-driven insights into audience behavior that can help build future campaigns.

We love how this QR code campaign demonstrated a master level of marketing awareness. Swift utilized every salient feature of the QR code–its accessibility, dynamism, and creativity–to raise publicity, engage her followers, and grow her audience. 

QR code screen

QR code campaigns in the football stadium

Another indicator of QR codes’ growing popularity is their presence at sporting events. The cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase made headlines with its Superbowl commercial featuring a neon-colored QR code bouncing around a black screen. This campaign resulted in the company’s landing page receiving over 20 million hits in a minute. The campaign shined by capturing viewer’s attention and driving their curiosity with a minimalist approach.

Of course, most companies won’t be purchasing Super Bowl ad space. However, QR code campaigns can light up stadiums in other ways. The University of Central Florida bucked tradition when its football team replaced the numbers on players’ jerseys with QR codes. Scans led viewers to a page with the player’s biography.

These campaigns employed several smart marketing strategies:

  • Expert application of marketing attribution: Marketing attribution is the process of using data-driven analytics to identify which marketing techniques work best. When it comes to TV commercials, it’s hard to measure success because the medium lacks data-collection abilities. By incorporating QR codes, CoinBase turned that paradigm on its head. Each scan provided key insights into audience behavior. The same logic applies to UCF’s campaign, which provided real-time insight on fan’s interests.
  • Innovating traditional marketing techniques: The Super Bowl is famous for its mega-flashy commercials, and football players have always worn numbers on their backs. These organizations overturned tradition by advertising a super-simple image and replacing players’ numbers with QR codes. This appealed to new, younger audiences without losing the loyalty of older ones.
  • Driving user engagement with interactive content: Football and technology trends don’t necessarily go together. These campaigns succeeded because the organizations already had audience buy-in. In the first, football fans maximized their entertainment levels. In the second, they learned more about a team they care about. In both cases, the interactive content drove audience engagement levels.

These two campaigns excel at demonstrating QR codes’ versatility. Because people spend so much time on their phones–even at a live event–QR codes can capture a user’s attention and convert passive onlookers to active consumers. 

Katy Perry’s QR code tattoos

Katy Perry recently made headlines with two QR code campaigns to promote her new album. Unlike Swift, Perry relied on an uber-personal version of the QR code: a tattoo. 

When Perry walked the red carpet at the VMAs, she showed off a QR code tattoo on her lower back. When scanned, the tattoo led to a pre-save website for her upcoming album. A few weeks later, Perry again modeled a QR code. This time, she flashed it on her palm at a Balenciaga fashion show. When scanned, the QR code led to a page with merchandise for her album.

Why this QR code campaign shines

It’s unclear whether Perry’s tattoo is a dynamic QR code or a static one. (It’s also unclear if the inks are permanent or not.)  In either case, anyone following her lead would do well to take advantage of a dynamic QR code. This means that the URL destination can change, and the owner of the QR code can direct users to new, meaningful content as their brand or product evolves. 

In Perry’s case, she could leverage the tattoo to promote her next album (or any other cause she wants to draw attention to). A more general take away from her QR code tattoo is its novelty. A QR code tattoo creates a great marketing hook. By literally branding herself with this funky black-and-white square, Perry took the concept of a personal brand to a whole new level. She collapsed the boundaries between her image and music, leading to more press and more exposure for her music. 

SiteDetour offers dynamic QR codes to help organizations boost their marketing efforts. Our platform allows you to quickly and easily set up personalized, dynamic QR codes that can:

  • Track user metrics: Dynamic QR codes grant valuable insights into audience behavior including location, time scanned, device used, preferred language, and more.
  • Offer real-time updates: Keep your audience informed by updating the QR code’s destination page with news, alerts, and other relevant information.
  • Build your audience: Target engagement with customized QR code destinations based on user demographics.

To learn more about SiteDetour’s products, contact us for a demo or get started with a free trial.