Interacting with the Dead Through QR Codes?

You’ve probably seen them on print marketing pieces or even on billboards: those funky square bar code looking images called QR (quick response) codes.  Designed by marketers to illicit an immediate response from consumers, like scanning and linking to a special offer or website, QR codes have been around for several years.  Though not always appreciated for their zany looks, the premise of the QR code is a good one:  link people to information that won’t fit or is too detailed to present traditionally.  British funeral home Chester Pearce Associates is now expanding QR applications by offering them for inclusion on the head stones of individuals’ lost loved ones.

When visitors scan the code from the stone with a simple QR code reader on their smart phones it links to photos, and obituary, or even a slide show of the person buried there.  Detailed in an article from ABC News by Nick Schifrin, the managing director of Chester Pearce shared, “It is about keeping the memory of someone alive, this man or woman really did something — these are the people they knew, these are their family, this is where they went. You can learn a lot more about people than what you see on the stone.”

McCauley Marketing Services works with a variety of clientele across the southeast to publicize each client’s unique personality and services.  Though there is certainly a level of restraint that should be exercised in incorporating communication technology into something intensely personal like funeral planning, we’re excited to see what other developments technological integration like this will bring to our modern, social lifestyle.

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