It was decades later that I was first exposed to barcodes when, in 1990, my agency got a client in Hyderabad who was trying to launch barcode machines in India. The effort then was not to sell barcodes to retailers and FMCG companies as a way of identifying packs, but to industrial enterprises as a way of tagging assets. It was slow-going, indeed.
A young copywriter at the agency got inspired by the barcode in a different way. He thought of barcodes when tasked to create an ad for Titan‘s ‘World Thinnest Watch’. – what if one of the 12 or more barcode lines is replaced with the image of the watch?
Unfortunately for him, his creative director bombed the idea, and it never got presented to the client. But fate had hope for barcodes. The agency’s regional creative director (RCD), who had come down from Singapore a few weeks later, wanted the young creative talent to pull out what they thought was ‘good’ but ‘rejected’ work. This ad was pulled out of the bottom shelf.
The RCD loved it and green-lit it for presentation to the client. The barcode ad went on to run on print and TV, establishing Titan’s ‘Slim’, even earning it ‘Campaign of the Year’ awards. From being a rarity seen in watch ads, today barcodes are ubiquitous. Even your local kirana has a barcode reader. Inventory and prices are embedded in the barcode, and most FMCG packs have their own ‘lines’.
But, barcodes are universal product codes (UPC) with limited information-carrying capacity. In contrast, QR (quick-response) codes – invented in 1994, by Denso Wave for labelling auto parts in Japan – are far more capable. So, are QR codes pushing barcodes out of business? QR codes, too, have had an interesting journey in India. I remember in 2003 including a QR code in a car’s print ad, occupying valuable real estate in a newspaper like ET. Readers who scanned the QR code were taken to the car’s website, where they could watch a demo video and more. Unfortunately, not even a tiny fraction of readers scanned the code. Finally, we decided not to include QR codes in print ads. But with the growth of smartphones, QR codes are everywhere. UPI has made them a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. A hospitality brand recently ran a print ad with a QR code up front. Almost 3% of the newspaper’s readers had scanned the QR code. That is a monumental shift in its acceptance.
Brands like L’Oreal have experimented with QR codes on their hair colour packs, which help consumers conduct a virtual try-on with different colours. Food brands have used them to suggest recipe options.
Manufacturers in the West are now working with retailers to drop barcodes from their packs, and roll out QR codes. From a retailer’s perspective, a QR code can offer more than just SKU (stock-keeping unit) information and price. They can also embed information about coupons, recalls, and batch numbers. Several companies are running trials with retailers to test the viability of QR codes, given that they will need a different set of scanners (the kind used to scan boarding passes in airports).
In the US, most large retailers scan barcodes on FMCG product packs. In India, many small and large retailers affix their own barcodes as separate stickers. Will that practice go away or continue, even if QR codes are provided on packs?
Transition from simple barcodes to more complex QR codes at retail check-outs will be interesting. And who knows? A young copywriter somewhere may think of a clever way of using them in a watch or a car ad.
The writer is a brand strategist.