As QR codes have gained popularity among companies looking to use new ways to advertise their products and services, they have begun to show up seemingly everywhere you look. Over the course of the past two months, March and April of 2012, I have documented the use of QR codes in business and college settings. Whenever I found a QR code that seemed relatively interesting, I would take a picture of it and then scan it so I would have the web address. All of the pictures on this page are linked to the website that the QR code designated.

The picture of the condom box with the sign on the side stating, "1 in 5 who are HIV positive don't know they have it" was taken on March 23rd, 2012 in the Caskey Center Laundry Room at Southwestern University. The things I found notable about this sign were the rudimentary nature of the sign, the location in a college laundry room, and the lack of a demand to scan the code. This is an important part of all of the QR code advertisements I found; does the advertisement actually ask the viewer to scan the code or not? Althusser writes that interpellation is the hailing of a subject by an ideology (p. 174). In the case of advertisements, Williamson describes a version of interpellation called appellation. Appellation is the "...exchange between you as an individual, and the imaginary subject addressed by the ad" (p. 50). Williamson further describes the appellation of a subject as a situation where "...we are addressed as a certain kind of person who is already connected with a product..." (p. 51). In order to give attention to an advertisement, you must be one of the intended subjects of the advertisement. In the case of the condom box and sign, the advertisement has been placed in a laundry room on a college campus. The way it is worded and the condoms it contains suggests that students who are sexually active should use protection in order to avoid getting and spreading HIV because 1 in 5 people who are positive for the disease are unaware of it. This is all very normal, except for the QR code on the right side of the sign. The advertisement gives no instructions on what to do with the QR code, or what the viewer may find when he scans the code. This code interpellates a certain kind of user, one who is familiar with what a QR code is and how to access one. Therefore the intended subject is someone who would be in a college laundry room, is sexually active or perhaps knows someone who is, and recognizes what a QR code is and how to access it through a smartphone or tablet.

The Tripadvisor picture was taken on April 7th, 2012 at a Comfort Suites hotel in Lewisville, TX. As the sign says, the QR code leads to this particular hotel's webpage on tripadvisor.com. The sign is similar to the condom sign in that it does not directly tell viewers to scan the QR code, but it does offer a textual indication of where the QR code leads. This text also interpellates those who do not recognize the QR code but understand that they can follow the web address and leave a review on the site. There are two main groups that the sign interpellates: those hotel guests who are familiar with QR codes and those who are not. The sign was also placed at the clerk's desk so customers who were checking out of the hotel could see it.

I took the picture of the Heinz ketchup bottle on April 7th, 2012 at a Cotton Patch Cafe in Lewisville, TX. The QR code on the bottle leads to Heinz's Facebook page. The bottle interpellates several different viewers, including those who know what a QR code is and how to scan it and those who are not familiar. Two new groups are addressed as well: those who want to interact with the Heinz advertising machine by text message, and those who want to add Heinz in a more normal fashion by recognizing the Facebook logo and liking the company the "old-fashioned" way by searching for them on Facebook.

Several companies and groups have merged the technology with sexual desire and augmented reality in order to create a real-time scopophilic experience, scopophilia being defined by Rose as "...pleasure in looking" (p. 149). Two advertising campaigns by Victoria's Secret and Pink Ribbon use this method in order to attract their audiences to scan QR codes leading to their respective websites. These advertising campaigns use pictures of naked, QR code-censored women that prompt viewers to scan the code in order to reveal the "secret" or to "reveal all." These advertisements play on male heterosexual or female homosexual voyeuristic tendencies in order to get viewers to interact with the ads. Rose defines voyeurism as "...a way of seeing that is active; it distances and objectifies what is looked at" (p. 159).

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