QR codes - popular abroad, funny looking barcodes here in the U.S. In reality, they hold the power to bring a stale medium to life.

Savvy marketers have been talking about the impact that QR codes are going to have on advertising for a long time, but I’m more intrigued by the impact they are going to have on the medium of print in general.

A couple of days ago, I was reading an article about Cee Lo’s new “Fuck You” video in the print version of the New York Times. It wasn’t alive at all. It was black and white. It was print.

Now, imagine if there was a QR code on the NY Times page that I could scanned with a QR code app on my IPhone.  Upon scanning, my IPhone would “link” to a blog post on NYTimes.com with Cee Lo’s video. I’d be engaged and my experience would have been thoughtfully enhanced. As a not-so-insignificant side effect, page views on the NY Times blog are increased and ad revenue increases. 

Doesn’t this seem like a no brainer?