QR Code on Heinz Ketchup Bottles Goes to Porn Site

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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If you are one of the dozen or so that actually takes the time to fire up a QR code reader to scan said code on food product labels, then listen up! A German ketchup fan was so consumed with curiosity that he scanned the QR code on the back of a Heinz Ketchup bottle and was rewarded with a porn site. I bet that wasn't the condoment he was expecting. :eek:

The man, who identified himself as Daniel Korell in a post on Heinz’s Facebook page, expressed his concern that children may use the QR code and accidentally find the porn site themselves. What caused this confluence of events that managed to bring the world of hardcore pornography and condiments together?
 
Well those new Heinz commercials do show that ketchup was bored with his old mustard girlfriend, so it's understandable he was looking at porn.
 
Well now, that's a very interesting way to get people to buy your product! :p
 
FunDorado, on the other hand, offered Korell a free one-year subscription, so he can “catch up” on all of the adult content he wants without having to grab a new bottle.

Now that's customer service.
 
It's not what is in the Heinz Ketchup bottle that matters, it's what the girls on the website do with the bottle! :eek:
 
You know what I thought of when I read this? That millions of bottles have probably been in circulation for a while now and this random dude is probably the only one who even bothered to try the QR code.
 
Dammit, just when I thought QR codes were dead and buried, Heinz gives them value again.
 
You know what I thought of when I read this? That millions of bottles have probably been in circulation for a while now and this random dude is probably the only one who even bothered to try the QR code.

A few years back I considered the possibility of people freaking out if someone were to slap QR codes to goatse or some equivalent on icecream trucks, but then I realized it wouldn't be worth the effort to get the stickers printed knowing that no one would ever use the things.

QR codes really are a funny thing. If you're somewhere that you don't have the time to type out a URL you want to visit later(ffs, I've seen then on billboards who do they expect to use that even as a passenger in a vehicle riding past?) then odds are you don't have the time to dick around and get your camera to focus perfectly while it's lined up... just take a picture of the URL with your camera real quick and go to it later. This weird idea that the general public would have a use for bar or QR codes should have died with that stupid cue cat. They make a lot of sense in some applications, but usually not in marketing.

I mean really, what person with any sense just opens a random URL that they can't even read to see if it's legit? It's like clicking links in random emails.
 
I mean really, what person with any sense just opens a random URL that they can't even read to see if it's legit? It's like clicking links in random emails.

Heh, apparently you don't know how most people think.. or don't think.
 
I mean really, what person with any sense just opens a random URL that they can't even read to see if it's legit? It's like clicking links in random emails.

QR codes seem like a really good way to spread malware, and I'm really surprised that there hasn't been some huge QR code malware campaign yet.

Restaurant advertising posters would be the best target for this, because the QR code usually links to the restaurant's "online ordering app" (The major pizza chains all have these posters for example). Because the poster is clearly advertising an app, it won't surprise the customer when they scan the code and it offers them a (virus infected) app for download.

Unlike a ketchup bottle, each poster might be scanned by dozens of people, so the hackers wouldn't have to replace very many codes to attack a lot of people.
 
I would say "phallic" shaped food items did the trick.:D
 
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