The Story: During the 2022 Super Bowl, crypto exchange Coinbase ran a 60-second commercial that consisted of absolutely nothing but a colorful QR code bouncing around a black screen, mimicking the nostalgic DVD player screensaver.

The Result: It played purely on human curiosity. It drove 20 million hits in one minute, immediately crashing their app. It is widely considered one of the most successful ROI marketing stunts of the decade.

The Story: In April 2021, the Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili celebrated a game anniversary. Instead of a billboard, they launched 1,500 illuminated drones into the night sky over Shanghai.

The Result: The drones maneuvered to form a massive, glowing, perfectly scannable QR code suspended in the air. Thousands of people on the ground pointed their phones at the sky, redefining how large a QR code could physically be.

The Story: Over the last few years, a growing trend in Japan, Europe, and the US involves stone masons sandblasting QR codes onto gravestones and memorial plaques.

The Result: Instead of just a name and dates, scanning the stone links visitors to a "digital memorial"—playing a video of the deceased, showing photo galleries, or providing a biography. It turned the code into a deeply emotional bridge across time.

The Story: As a cautionary tale of how much we trust QR codes, a new type of phishing emerged called "Quishing". Scammers printed out high-quality stickers of malicious QR codes and slapped them directly over legitimate "Scan to Pay" codes on city parking meters.

The Result: Drivers scanned them, entered their credit card info into a fake portal, and paid the scammers instead of the city. A fascinating study in social engineering!

The Story: Heinz noticed that some restaurants were refilling empty Heinz bottles with cheap, generic ketchup to save money. To combat this, they used QR codes in a brilliant reverse-psychology campaign.

The Result: They updated the label to include a hidden QR mechanism. If a customer scanned the bottle, the app analyzed the color of the ketchup through the glass. If it didn't match the exact Pantone "Heinz Red," it flagged it as a fake and gave the customer a coupon to buy their own real bottle.

The Story: In 2012, a Canadian family at the Kraay Family Farm decided to take the concept of "scaling up" literally. They carved a fully functional QR code into their 15-acre cornfield.

The Result: It holds the Guinness World Record for the largest QR code ever made. It was so massive that you had to be in a helicopter to scan it. When scanned, it redirected users straight to the farm's homepage.

The Story: The ultimate internet prank found a new vector when custom QR generators became easily accessible. Pranksters began printing high-quality QR codes and taping them over public transport maps, museum plaques, and concert posters.

The Result: Instead of helpful information, millions of unsuspecting victims scanning the codes were instantly redirected to YouTube to watch Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," proving that curiosity is indeed a vulnerability.

The Story: The Welsh town of Monmouth embarked on an ambitious project to become the world's first "Wikipedia Town." They installed ceramic plaques containing QR codes on every school, pub, museum, and significant building in the entire city.

The Result: The codes used a special tool called "QRpedia." When a tourist scanned the code, the system detected the language setting on their phone and instantly delivered the Wikipedia article for that building in their native tongue.