You are probably in the movies and entertainment sector. And you need to stay ahead with the latest trends to keep yourself updated and your audience engaged.
And you know that QR Codes can potentially help you do it. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in smartphone penetration and access to high-speed internet.
These factors have made QR Codes popular. Hence, they are now being used across various industries for many diverse use cases.
Some of these include payments, promotions, education, and inventory tracking.
Similarly, QR Codes can be used to facilitate many operations in the movies and entertainment sector too. In this article, we will see seven ways how QR Codes can help the movies and entertainment industry.
A. How to use QR Codes in movies and entertainment industry
1. To ensure hassle-free check-in to theatres
This is one of the most common use cases of QR Codes in movies and entertainment. You would’ve seen them on the movie tickets already.
Once you book a ticket online, you can show its soft copy at the check-in. The person authorizing entries scans the QR Code on your ticket. And gets to know if it is a valid entry or not.
Since scanning a QR Code takes 2-3 seconds, the process becomes faster and smoother. It does two things. First, it saves people from waiting in long queues.
And second, it helps theatre authorities to validate entries securely without installing any cost intensive set-up. A smartphone is all they need to scan the QR Code.
BookMyShow, an online movie booking service, does the same. It helps customers book their movie tickets online. And adds a QR Code to the soft copies of these tickets.
This QR Code is scanned at the entry gate of the theatre and entry is granted.
2. To create a buzz about your upcoming movie
To create a buzz, a trailer is released before the movie. It tells the audience what the movie is about, what’s the plot, and what’s its cast. The audience can watch this trailer to decide if they want to watch the movie or not.
But releasing the trailer is not enough. You actually have to promote it well. Since when the trailer reaches out to a large audience, only then you can expect good response for the actual movie.
While you promote it online, you’d also want to do it offline. Why? Because digital promotions are readily actionable and don’t need end-users to put much effort.
But the problem is—you see many ads online every day. How many of them do you actually pay attention to? Not many, right?
On the other hand, offline promotions have a longer attention span. You do not receive many flyers and magazines every day, right?
But offline media is not actionable. Say if you add the link to the trailer on flyers, people will have to put both effort and time typing the link to watch it online.
So the best way is—to create a combination of the two (online and offline media). And QR Codes make an excellent tool to do that.
You can create a Video QR Code and add it to the flyers. Your audience can then scan it to view the trailer easily. Or you can also create a Website URL QR Code using the video link.
3. To get your audience to visit your website
Getting people to visit your website is a task. Say you want them to do it and display the link to your website on the movie screen.
How many people do you think will take the action? To be honest, not many.
The reason is—they’ll have to pull out their smartphones to tediously type the link and finally see your website. Since it needs effort, not many people bother doing it.
A QR Code here helps you make this process easier. We call it—a Website URL QR Code. When scanned, it helps the end-users to visit the encoded website without typing anything.
They simply need to scan the QR Code. That’s it. And you know—the easier the process, the better is the response rate.
And people are doing it already. In Shaun the Sheep movie (2015), the audience saw a QR Code hidden in the movie. On scanning it, it took the viewers to Shaun the Sheep’s website.
4. To promote your mobile application
Have you developed a mobile application (just like BookMyShow)? If it’s a yes, you’d want people to download it on their mobiles. But it’s easy said than done.
Just like visiting a website URL, installing an application needs effort. And an App Store QR Code helps you minimize this effort on the user’s end.
Like the name implies, an App Store QR Code stores the link to an app. And you don’t need to create separate QR Codes for all devices with different operating systems. A single QR Code is sufficient.
It redirects you to Google Play Store or App Store depending on the scanning device’s OS. Simple, right?
Also, an App Store QR Code is dynamic in nature. Hence, you can monitor its scanning activity. Not sure what a dynamic QR Code is? We’ll discuss it in detail later in the article.
The Redbox have used QR Codes for this purpose already. They placed App Store QR Codes on the vending machines. People could scan this QR Code to download their (Redbox’s) application on their phones.
Related : QR Code For Link
5. To offer discount coupons to your audience
Offers and discounts are a great way to attract the audience in most sectors. To offer discounts you often give away promo codes. The audience can use these codes while booking the ticket to avail the offer.
To do this, you can use QR Codes. These QR Codes are also called Coupon QR Codes.
When you scan a Coupon QR Code, it shows you the promo code, a description, and an option to apply it.
This makes it easier for you to share coupons. And just like any other QR Code, it makes taking action easier for your audience.
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc., a multinational entertainment company, has used QR Codes for this purpose already.
6. To get reviews and ratings for the movie
Customer ratings and reviews are important for any business. They help you know what your audience expects and how has your performance been.
And they help your potential customers decide on whether they’d use your services (or watch the movie) or not.
But since submitting an online review is a tedious task, many people don’t bother doing it. So many businesses now use QR Codes to get customer reviews.
This QR Code, when scanned, takes the end-users directly to the reviews page. Hence, they can give their ratings and comments right away. No need for them to spend time finding the review page online.
And since the process becomes easier, the number of responses received also increases.
7. To build a community on social media
Do you have active social media accounts where you post updates regularly? Great! Then you’d want people to follow you on these platforms.
Social media is one of the best ways to build a community and keep people updated on the upcoming movies.
And to get people to follow you on social media easily, you can use a Social Media QR Code.
As people scan it with their smartphones, they see a landing page with links to all your social media accounts. They can then decide their favorite platform to follow you online.
You can display this QR Code on movie screens and even on print media creatives. For example—movie tickets and posters.
These are seven ways movies and entertainment industry can use QR Codes for various use cases.
But before you go ahead to create QR Codes, there are a few things you must know:
B. Best practices for QR Codes
1. Always add a CTA
While adding a QR Codes, you must also add an instruction or call-to-action statement with it.
It could be—Scan here to watch the trailer now. Or Scan here to grab the offer.
A simple push like this helps the audience know what action they need to take. And what to expect after scanning the QR Code.
2. Design your QR Code
If your use case is promotional, you must consider designing your QR Codes. This is because black-and-white QR Codes are dull and boring.
But QR Codes designed by adding color and logo act as a point-of-engagement. Hence, they attract as many scans as possible.
3. Track your campaign performance
If you are a marketer, you know that it’s important to keep an eye on your campaigns. It helps you know how you are doing and channelize your effort accordingly.
And dynamic QR Codes help you do it. Dynamic QR Codes are both editable and trackable. You can edit their content even after you’ve created them. Further, you can also track their scanning activity. For example—number of scans, date and time of scans, location of scans, etc.
4. Test scan the QR Code
Before you go ahead with printing or displaying the QR Code for your audience, always test scan it.
It will ensure that you don’t print a non-functional QR Code.
That’s it. That’s all you need to know about QR Codes in the movies and entertainment industry.
