Nellymoser reports huge rise in magazine QR code use

According to Nellymoser the use of their QR codes by magazines has shot up by 228% over the last 12 months as the print industry tries to appeal to the new generation of mobile-wielding consumers. In 2011 almost 4,500 QR codes appeared within ads and editorial of the U.S.'s top 100 magazines. The year started off with 352 codes in Q1. It grew to 1,899 in Q4, which is 439% growth.

Women's titles were found to be the biggest users of QR codes last year. The biggest was InStyle with 141 codes followed by ESPN The Magazine (136), People (136), Self (126) and Entertainment Weekly (123).

The research also revealed that the more QR codes present in a magazine the higher the response rate.

"The more codes that are in a single publication, the higher the scan rate for the single publication," said Roger Matus, executive vice president of Nellymoser. "We have found this again and again. People get trained once, and they have their phones out, and it becomes part of the process."

Figures just released by British lads mag Nuts reveal that their recent interactive issue, which was peppered with QR codes, enticed many smartphone-wielding readers to scan.

According to the magazine publisher, IPC Media, over 15,000 unique smartphone users interacted more than 200,000 times with the issue - an average of 13 interactions per user.

Tags: barcode scanner, magazine, mobile marketing, print media, QR code, research, U.S.