Let's be honest: I don't get QR codes.
Maybe it's because I'm just a journosaur, who likes to receive information the traditional way – in words. Or maybe it's because my smartphone is so out of date, it's barely functional, thanks to this ridiculous three-year plan I was forced to take so that my monthly phone costs wouldn't equal a month's rent.
Or maybe it's because I don't see the logic of taking a snapshot of a square-shaped coded diagram, which then takes you to an URL. I mean, why not just put the URL in your browser? I guess I'm a square that way.
But obviously a lot of people like QR codes. I guess they're just hipper (read: younger) than I am.
Which is why The Big Wild, a wilderness conservation organization founded by Vancouver-based Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Societ (CPWS), is using them in a campaign to attract young people to their cause – to save several wilderness areas in Canada.
In B.C., The Big Wild has put up posters containing large QR codes squares and the mysterious exhortation to "Do something small to save something big."
Anyone young will know what they're supposed to do: Use their phone's code reader to access the URL, which is a petition The Big Wild is circulating to save southeast B.C.'s Flathead River Valley.
These kind of engagement campaigns have proven successful in the past around the world and so are becoming trendy. No one's really quite sure why.
I think, however, that it has something to do with the always-prevalent desire among the young to jump on the Next New Thing, to be part of a tribe. Also, maybe there is an element of latest gadgetry in there.
If you throw in the added feel-good factor of saving the wilderness, you've got the makings of a pretty good viral marketing campaign.
Let's face it, saving the planet and being "in the know" is a seductive combination.
So when you see someone pointing his phone at some square-shaped thing that looks like a computer map, you, um, know that they're more in the know than you are.
They know that it's hip to like squares. As long as they're written in code.
