Creating Birthday Buzz With QR Codes

Aadi, my son, turned nine on the 27th of December. Born right bang in the middle of the Christmas/New Year break has some advantages--like being sure you don't have to go to school on your birthday. Or having all the time in the world to plan a great party. But, as we discovered over the last eight years, it also has one big disadvantage. The school break is also the time when many of his friends go out of town.

So after a number of years of disappointing party attendance, we decided to up our game. Our target was to ensure his friends stay back for his birthday. To do that we knew we had to create a buzz way before the day. The key to creating the buzz would have to be a good theme and we choose Mystery/Detectives. This fit in nicely with his obsession for the spy mouse Geronimo Stilton and Enid Blyton's Secret Seven. 

Invitations to the party were sent out a week before and had a element of mystery...courtesy a QR Code. Anyone wanting to get admission to the party would have to find the password hidden in the code. While a seemingly simple element for adults this created tremendous excitement among our target demographic (Aadi's friends), as many of them had not heard of the QR Code or even scanned one before. This age group generally does not own a smart phone but have played games on their parents' phones. They simply loved the idea of finding the password using the phone. 

Our phones started ringing half an hour after the first invitations went out. The first kid cracked the password less than an hour later. Two days later a couple of parents called to confirm they were cancelling their trips as their kids wanted to attend the mystery party. Another came back earlier than planned make it to the event. Some of our friends called to ask if they could bring over kids who had heard of the mystery party and wanted to attend...even though they had not met Aadi. 

Kids and their parents would come up to Aadi, Anjali (my wife) and I either to whisper the password or ask us how to get it. The original list of 15 had already ballooned to 24 and still the requests for invites kept coming. I had to go back for more party props as the list would keep growing. 

On the 27th, we stuck an invitation to the door, for the few that might have not figured out the password....and there were a few adults who actually had to be helped with downloading a QR Code scanner. The kids mostly figured it out and so there was no problem. 

By now, happy with the interest our little code had generated, we decided to generate another one for those who could not attend. This was stuck on the cake and would lead to a simple puzzle. To know the answer or to check if you had the right one, you had to call up the birthday boy. The story of the birthday went up on Facebook a day later and the phones started ringing within half an hour of the post. Many of the calls were to wish Aadi, yet others to compliment Anjali and I for the innovative theme. But the majority simply wanted to know the answer to the puzzle.

This little post birthday puzzle extended the birthday buzz into the new year greetings as well. Many of our family and friends calling up to wish for the New Year also wanted to know the answer to the puzzle.

The core team of play buddies now call themselves the secret six! Last heard they're in search of their first mission.

All in all the party did not cost us anything more than the previous editions. But the buzz it generated before, during and after ensured this became Aadi's most memorable birthday ever.

As an advocate of technology there were a number of important learning's from this simple birthday exercise:

a) It is not enough to simply bung in a QR Code in an ad or on product packaging. There has to be a clear call to action to create engagement.

b) Knowledge of QR Codes is abysmal even among adults. I had to help many of them download scanners before they got the password.

c) In a country where mobile internet connectivity can range from spotty to non-existent it helps if the QR Code engagement can be enabled via phone call or SMS. None of our codes led to a URL. Doing this ensured we got a tremendous response to both the codes via phone calls and SMS.

d) QR codes are a brilliant marketing tool. But a little more thought needs to go into creating the campaigns. Using them simply to point to a URL can be an exercise in futility.