Top 100 magazines increased QR code use by 617 percent in 2011

According to a Nellymoser study, the use of QR codes, such as 2D barcodes and Microsoft Tags, skyrocketed by 617 percent between January and December 2011 within the top 100 American magazines.

Nellymoser is a mobile technology and marketing company based in Massachusetts and its data indicated that most of the growth of the use of QR codes was driven by advertisers. From the beginning to the end of last year, the number of magazine pages that included these barcodes rose from 3.6 percent to 8.36 percent.

This most recent research looked into the leading 100 magazines in the United States (based on circulation) and examined the issues that had been published throughout 2011, which involved the analysis of 164,255 pages. Every QR code was scanned by the company, which also activated every available campaign, visited every mobile webpage, and played every video.

What they discovered included the following:

• When they counted the number of codes printed in the magazines in each month, they found that it grew from 88 in January, to a much higher 631 in December.

• Advertisers made a significant contribution to the growth in the use of these codes, as the monthly percentage from advertising rose from January’s 87 percent to December’s 96 percent.

• In the first quarter, the average per-issue number of codes was 2.33, and it increased in the fourth quarter to 6.5.

• There was an increase from 66 percent in the market share for QR codes in January to 80 percent in December.

• In the last quarter of 2011, almost all of the QR codes led to branding videos, demonstrations of products, m-commerce sites, sweepstakes, or social sharing sites.