“I launched a billboard campaign with a QR code that didn’t work.”

I was working at a mid-sized beverage company trying to break into the energy drink market. We were so hyped about the campaign, it was our first big-budget project. The concept was a sleek, minimalistic billboard campaign plastered across major highways. The design featured nothing but our logo, a catchy tagline, and a massive QR code that was supposed to take people to an exclusive landing page with a discount code.

Launch day arrived, and we were buzzing in the office, eagerly monitoring social media for reactions. At first, the posts seemed positive: “Love the bold design!” Then the confusion hit. People started commenting on our channels, “Anyone else scan that giant QR code and get… nothing?”

Panic set in. It turned out the URL in the QR code pointed to a placeholder link we’d used during design drafts — a 404 error page. And since these were physical billboards, fixing them wasn’t as simple as updating a webpage. So we quickly pivoted and created a webpage using the placeholder link. But still, hours had passed so who knows how much we truly lost.

We scrambled to address the issue on social media and even creating memes about the error to soften the blow. While some followers appreciated the humor, we lost a sh*t ton of potential buzz.