QR Codes have been called the marketing tool that marketers love to hate. Why? Because so many seem to provide absolutely no value.

Perhaps you scan a QR Code and it doesn’t go anywhere at all. Perhaps you get an error or the page to which the code points doesn’t exist. Perhaps you see a QR Code on a product you are interested in, so you scan the code and end up at a manufacturer’s non-mobile website where you get lost in a maze of links so dense that you forget why you went there in the first place.

Does this mean that QR Codes are a waste of time? No. It means not enough thought was put into creating them.

You are starting to see them everywhere. They look like jigsaw puzzles, sometimes in color but most often in black-and-white. They are on magazine advertisements, posters and billboards, business cards, and just about everything else.

They are quick response (or QR) codes, and they act as mobile shortcuts to websites, discount coupons, videos, and other content. Point at them with your smartphone, snap a picture of the code, and you are zipped to a video, a coupon, a Web page, contact information, or other content. A static medium suddenly turns into a dynamic, interactive one.