Driving into the office from the beach a few weekends ago, I was face to face with an eye catching Monsanto billboard. I wish I could have captured a photograph of the billboard but I was zipping along the road and there was no way to snap a shot of it. And, that is precisely the point.  Monsanto’s advertising and social media is well executed, especially for a behemoth corporation that is often in the crosshairs of environmental groups.

Their “America’s farmers grow America” is a smart, beautiful campaign that most advertising agencies would be proud to show. So I was surprised to see this billboard with a large QR code on the lower right-hand side of the ad. What ever possessed them to put a QR code on a billboard on a major highway? Was it to show that they are tech savvy? To demonstrate the latest “hip” technique? Whatever the reason, it is certain that almost no one, especially drivers passing at 55 mph are going to whip out their phones, center on the code, and then peruse a site while they are driving. Oh, and did I mention that it is illegal in the State of Maryland to use a cell phone while driving?

This is not to say that QR codes do not belong on billboard spaces. There have been QR codes used successfully on billboards notably, Calvin Klein’s billboards that were focused not on drivers in Manhattan but pedestrians. And in all of the successful QR billboards the code is very large allowing the pedestrian to easily get it into the crosshairs of their RedLaser application. In Monsanto’s case the QR code was very small and not the main feature.

On the other hand, that morning as I entered the elevator lobby there was a very poorly designed flyer taped to the wall advertising a free seminar offered by a law firm in the building. On the bottom of the flyer was a QR code. Standing there waiting for the elevator (we have the slowest elevators in the world), I did use the QR code to find out more information about the event.

The point? Appropriate use of technology always trumps early adoption. And employing technology without understanding how it will actually be used leaves you open to potshots from people like me. QR codes have their place, and we have used them successfully for many of our clients, but putting them on billboards on high speed highways is just plain silly, and I doubt that this was Monsanto’s intention.