A USB Flash Drive Branded with a QR Code

One of our recent branded USB memory stick jobs, seen on the right requested a square pixelated symbol to be printed on one side of their bamboo flash drives from our Wood USB range.  Some people may not be aware of what this dotted picture is.  It could be thought that it was a weird, complex company logo or a symbol for a marketing campaign.  It is in fact, a QR code.

A QR Code Printed onto a Branded USB FLash Drive

As with everything in business nowadays ‘Quick Response Codes’ is often shortened to ‘QR codes’.  They work in a simlar way to a barcode, once scanned with a QR scanner the code is read and the relevant information is produced.  They were first used in tracking parts with vehicle manufacturers but their uses have more recently moved to marketing on devices such as mobile phones and computers.  QR readers can be downloaded onto smart phones or computers using apps such as QR Reader, KAYWA reader or i-nigma reader.  When the code is ‘scanned’ by taking a picture with the phones camera or the computers web-camera the code can direct the phone to do a variety of things such as open a website, display text, show some text, write an SMS message, show a location on Google maps and many more things.  These QR codes have been used on marketing campaigns, on billboards, in newspapers, on business cards and even on chocolate.

QR codes are free to generate and can be made on sites such as www.qrcode.kaywa.com and www.qrstuff.com.  The issue however with QR codes however, is that mobile phones and computers do not come with QR reader software already installed, an application must be downloaded onto the devices before the code can be read.  Despite this QR codes are great for marketing because they mean that static, traditional advertising such as billboards and magazine adverts can become digital and mobile only by taking a photo.

Now, with our recent job printing QR codes onto the branded USB memory sitck, even devices like USB flash drives, which have both digital and static marketing benefits can become that little more digital and mobile.  We think that this job was a great idea and should be very effective as a promotional USB memory stick.

Of course, the idea that a device can open a file, a website or a location on a map has been around for while with branded USB flash drives.  With the auto-run feature that will automatically open certain files when plugged into a computer can be installed onto our promotional flash drives.  To find out more about the auto-run feature visit the USB duplication and data-loading page.

If you are new to QR codes try ‘scanning’ the QR code to the left and see where it takes you…