Tag: 2d barcodes

Mobile marketers love these barcodes , but as consumers embrace them, unscrupulous efforts grow.

It’s difficult to open a magazine or a flyer, these days, without seeing QR codes in all of the adds, but just as their popularity grows, so does their attractiveness to unethical individuals who would take advantage of this opportunity to cause harm.

These little black and white codes may look simple enough, but they may now pose an underlying threat.

It took quite a while for consumers to start to feel the enthusiasm for QR codes that mobile marketers have felt from the start. This has meant that individuals who would seek to use them for harmful purposes have left them alone for quite some time. But as the scanning trend continues to grow, so have the hazards associated with the activity.

Malicious QR codes have started to pop up here and there now that the technology has become commonplace.

Though it is still rare for malicious QR codes to appear, they have started showing up on occasion, and their impact can be quite damaging. This is because there are far more mobile device users that have barcode scanners than there are those who have protection against the type of attack that a tainted scan could present.

QR codes are meant to make it easy to redirect a device user to an app or a website to provide information, generate a download, view a video, or even to help buy a product or make a charitable donation. However, when a permissive reader app has been used, even a seemingly harmless scan could place the user’s privacy at risk.

The most common strategy that is used in order to encourage malicious barcode scans is simply to place a sticker with the harmful code overtop of the legitimate square. Therefore, one of the best efforts that a device user can make to protect his or her security is simply to double check that the QR codes they scan are printed directly onto materials from companies that they trust, and aren’t printed onto a sticker. Downloading a scanner app with built in protection is also a highly recommended activity.

The store location in Ginza, Tokyo, is using quick response barcodes in a unique new way.

Ginza, Tokyo, is one of the most luxurious shopping districts around the globe, and its Barneys New York location is now using QR codes to appeal to a chic, tech savvy, and smartphone equipped consumer.

The barcode display has been designed to project it onto the storefront window every fifteen minutes.

The display was created by Simon Doonan, who has been creating window setups for the company for a quarter of a century. The QR codes in these displays are shown only once every quarter of an hour, and individuals who are patient and lucky enough to be able to scan them enter into the chance to win one of a number of different prizes.

The display with the QR codes is being called the “Treasure Hunt Window”.

The promotion ran throughout the entire length of the holiday season in order to give consumers the largest possible opportunity to spot the QR codes, scan them, and grab their chance to win a prize.

These window displays have been capturing a large amount of attention and have effectively brought traditional advertising and the mcommerce channel together. It has also provided the company with an added opportunity to sell more product throughout the holiday season – regardless of whether or not the store was actually open at the time – as users were also capable of heading to the store’s optimized website.

This means that the QR codes allowed consumers to try to win a prize, but they could also visit the mobile commerce website so that they could view some of the many products available at the store, and make a purchase as the site is equipped with a shopping cart and checkout option, as well.

This is not the first time that QR codes have been used by Barneys New York. They have also run a full magazine ad campaign that gave smartphone users the same opportunity to shop at the mobile optimized website of the store and to learn more about the products that they have seen in the ads that were printed in the magazines.