QR codes allow QSR to provide truly fast food

Fast Food QR codes google glass

The appetite of these restaurants for quick response barcodes is proving to be a growing one.

If there’s one thing that the top quick service restaurants (QSRs) have in common other than fast food, it appears to be the use of QR codes for a number of purposes ranging from mobile commerce and payments to marketing.

Despite the fact that there are even newer technologies than the barcodes, they still have their appeal.

Giants including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell are all using QR codes to help them in one way or another. In the case of these three, they are adding the mobile barcodes to their packaging to help to add value to the boxes, cups, and wrappers.

Fast Food QR codesQSRs like QR codes because they are inexpensive and it is easy to test their efficacy with customers.

The fast food restaurants can easily apply the QR codes to areas where smartphone carrying customers will be able to scan them, to be able to see what type of content generates the greatest response. Moreover, it is easier to actually measure the response to the use of QR codes than many other more traditional forms of marketing.

McDonald’s has made one of the largest fast food restaurant investments into QR codes this year. It is currently experimenting with the use of the barcodes in several ways, but among the largest is the use for providing more information about the products to the customers, such as nutritional information. According to the DDB Chicago senior vice president and director of mobile, Dirk Rients, “McDonald’s has an ongoing commitment to provide customers with information about the products they are eating and to help them make informed choices.”

Rients added that “Adding QR codes on the packaging allows McDonald’s to directly connect with their customers and deliver relevant content, including things like nutritional information.” His company is the agency being used by McDonald’s for this mobile marketing and information effort.

The QR codes are now printed on bags and cups so that customers can scan them with their smartphones. Reading the barcodes sends the customer to a specific page on the mobile optimized McDonald’s website where they can view the nutritional information for all of the items on the menu.

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