Hacker News Reader

Why a QR code and not a big freaking advertising banner?

If it is because there are regulations against advertising.. the QR code is still an advertisement, so that shouldn't be a loophole.

View on HN

I own a company that does this, and most advertisers do prefer to put an ad image instead of a QR code. We focus primarily on sites near flight paths at major airports and the Google Earth/Maps aspect is more of just an added bonus for us so there is some difference in target audience but our clients resoundingly prefer actual ads to QR codes. We've tried selling the idea of rooftop QR codes because they are so much easier to paint than e.g. a photorealistic person who is 250ft tall but haven't had any interest from clients so far.

Ad regulations are mainly aimed at safety and appearance from the street. I doubt there are many regulations about ads lying flat on one's roof.

As for ad banner vs. QR code, I think the QR code wins, pixel-for-pixel. If you look at that picture in the article, replacing the QR code with some sort of ad at the same size (or even just text) would require the viewer to have to zoom in further to make it out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com