QR codes were one of the biggest comeback stories of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Engine Insights, 76% of people have used them in the last two years, and 58% have grown more comfortable with using them since March 2020.
The humble piece of tech has popped up everywhere from Super Bowl ads to restaurant menus. Since the start of 2022, it’s also been sending a potentially life-saving message to German citizens.
Showcasing what can happen when innovative design meets functionality, the QR code has turned out to be the pièce de resistance at the center of a campaign for German nonprofit Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe, which offers emergency medical and humanitarian aid in Europe.
Over the past 10 months, the charity has been working with WPP agency Scholz & Friends to draw attention to the issue of gawking (or rubbernecking) at accident scenes, focusing on people who pull their phones out of their pockets and start filming during an emergency situation.
Though ogling behavior stems from natural curiosity, stopping to photograph an accident can obstruct rescue efforts and ultimately cause delays that could mean the difference between life and death. Since January 2021, people in Germany who photograph or record an accident could face up to two years in prison.
To tackle the problem, Johanniter and Scholz created a pattern based on QR technology, which has been printed on the side of emergency vehicles and equipment used by rescue forces to discourage people from capturing footage.
When a smartphone camera is activated and pointed at the scene, the pattern triggers an automatic warning, “Gawking kills” (or “Gaffen Tötet”), catching people in the act and directing them to a website with more information.
Now, the charity is mapping out the next stage of the campaign. It’s in talks with different institutions—and even countries like Sweden and the UAE—to roll the concept out further.
“This isn’t an abstract, intellectual bit of design,” said Hamburg-based Claudia Hauptmann, head of central marketing and communications at Johanniter. “It’s an example of what can happen when you come up with an idea that tackles a real issue we face in society.”
A QR code in disguise
This concept wasn’t delivered following a brief from the client. Instead, it emerged from a 2021 conversation between the Johanniter and Scholz teams about the main pain points facing the rescue service.
The agency pitched the idea to Hauptmann, who quickly saw how to use the visibility of the brand’s own touch points to drive its message.
“The first goal is to interrupt people in the act of gawking, to catch them in the act in the hope that will it lead to less people standing at the site of an accident,” she said. “The second was to change attitudes and the overall thinking toward this kind of behavior. People have a relaxed attitude about it here—even though it’s illegal now, it’s still not taboo.”
Federal regulations around the functional elements of ambulance vehicles, which must be brightly colored and clearly marked, presented a challenge. “I didn’t think we’d be able to do it,” Hauptmann said. She presented the idea to the rescue teams first, rather than her marketing department, to great approbation.
Since the first iteration, the design has been improved to work in low light conditions based on feedback from staff.
Ramona Junggeburt, one of the Scholz & Friends creative directors behind the idea along with Christoph Schlossnikel, said another obstacle was designing the QR code pattern in a way that didn’t just tempt people to scan it with their smartphone.
“The breakthrough [was] developing a hidden QR code that didn’t look like one, but instead was more of a camouflage pattern that could have been an existing design element on emergency vehicles or uniforms. It had to be a QR code in disguise that surprised people,” she revealed.
The pilot program launched in January with three vehicles in Berlin, and has since expanded to 29 ambulances in eight locations across Germany. It drew global attention attention, garnering 2.3 million impressions on social and even a request from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a private viewing.
After three months of running the initiative, 22% of the German public told Johanniter they had heard about the campaign, while 88% said it would make them change their own behavior.
A bigger impact
The campaign is accompanied by a study from Akkon University analyzing its impact at emergency scenes. Hauptmann admits evaluating the experience on the ground is a “complex” process involving monitoring a control group of plain ambulances against the ones kitted out in the decal.
Junggeburt said the interim results look very promising. “If the effectiveness of the concept is confirmed, it will be used on more emergency vehicles in the future. And who knows, maybe outside Germany as well.”
Indeed, Hauptmann has been approached by organizations from Switzerland, Dubai and Singapore interested in emulating the concept.
Her team is currently exploring how to bring the design to the backpacks carried by Johanniter paramedics too, and she’s also had inquiries from German firefighting and police services.
“Once we’ve evaluated [the success of the] project, we are going to give it to everyone who’s interested,” she said. “We really are committed to give it to other institutions. Everyone who wants to use it can use it.”
For Junggeburt, the exercise offers a lesson for all marketers in being braver with their own physical properties and products.
“Brands should be much more creative and bolder in how they use their brand touch points—their fleet, their uniforms or their buildings,” she said. “It’s always exciting for creatives to rethink existing technologies—like QR code technology—and find new ways to use them.”
