How NOT to Use Video and a QR Code…
So I got a direct mail piece today from a new real estate brokerage in Boston looking to recruit new agents. I’m not interested at all in exploring a new brokerage (at all), but I am always curious to see what other companies are doing on the marketing front. Kind of a blah marketing piece overall, nothing that jumped off the page, but I did notice a video call to action and a QR code on one page of the package…
I pulled out my trusty QR code reader and scanned the code embedded in the corner of the video thumbnail, which brought up the following page on my phone:
Looked a lot like the printed piece I was just looking at (That’s good, kept me on theme…). This page also asked me to enter the code from the printed piece before watching the video. OK. Cool. They’re probably using the codes for some kind of tracking or A/B testing. I get it. I’ll play along. And so I proceeded to input the code that was included on the printed piece…
And then BAM.
What? After I entered the code on the last screen, I clicked the “Play” button, which I THOUGHT meant “Play the Video” but apparently it mean “Play Some Games” because instead of watching a video, I am greeted with a “Real Estate Sales Application”. Huh?!?!? I never said I wanted to apply for a job. I said I wanted to watch your stupid video. You must have misunderstood me and thought I said, “Please give me some more hoops to jump through. Please??”
Bitter, hurt and jaded, I scrolled downward…
And more…
And MORE…
By the time I got to the bottom of their “Real Estate Sales Application” (after a few pages of scrolling) and saw the CAPTCHA and the option to upload a resume, I did what any normal, mobile-savvy consumer would do.
I bailed.
Wasted 5 minutes of my life because I was simply curious about what the video might look like. In retrospect, I know EXACTLY what the video looked like based on the printed piece they sent me, but I still wanted to go through the user experience and see how they executed.
They failed. Epically.
I never saw the video. I got too annoyed with their car-dealer bait and switch tactic. If you tease me with a video and ask me to scan a QR code to view it and then make me jump through your “Real Estate Sale Application” (which I NEVER asked for!), you lose me.
Deliver what you promise without throwing in something that only benefits YOU before you give me what I came for. It was a bad move and the moral of the story…
I never watched the video and threw out the expensive full-color piece you sent me.