QR codes used on TV advert: Is this the stupidest thing you've ever heard?

The Mobile Marketer has news of a super-amazing-fantastic-totally-rubbish use of QR codes.

I have to say I think QR codes are, with limited exceptions, absolutely shit.

I don’t mind seeing them in magazines or newspaper ads. Or perhaps on event signage. There are plenty of situations where their use is warranted.

But on flipping television advertisement?

Are you kidding me?

Am I having an out of brain experience?

Butter me in honey and call me Geoffrey!

Read this: [And then weep.]

The code was preceded by three alerts telling viewers to get their smartphones ready. When the code appeared on the screen, they can use an available reader to stream the video on their mobile devices or instructions to download to their desktop.

How utterly shit.

Read the full story here.

I really can’t believe this.

The code was preceded by THREE alerts? Telling viewers to GET THEIR SMARTPHONES ready? You WHAT? Apparently the QR code was displayed twice for a 45-second duration.

That, my dear reader, must have been a truly exciting experience for everyone else watching.

Apparently “thousands” of people across the country interrupted their advertising viewing to scan the QR code.

I am astonished.

I am saddened.

Look how far we’ve come as an industry. And folk are using the technology for this purpose?

Save me.