QR codes are a bridge between offline and online in the smartphone age. In the absence of links, they guide potential new users and faithful customers to a brand’s store, social media account, or promo page. We’ve come up with a list of clever QR code marketing ideas we’ve seen in Asia – a nice mix of one-off novelty uses and practical, daily use-cases.

While not all these QR code campaign examples relate to marketing in the strict sense of being used in adverts, they’re all part of a connection between us and the web – and that easy segue is a vital part of easing ordinary people into adopting something. That helps a product or marketing campaign to go viral.

Here are seven QR code marketing examples that you should consider adopting:

1. Add me!

WeChat has made QR codes mainstream in China. In its early days in 2011, the popular, mobile-only messaging app needed an easy way for people to share their WeChat ID in the absence of a URL. So WeChat turned to QR codes, which have been around since the 1990s. Because it’s usually easier for buddies to add each other to WeChat via their phone numbers, QR codes are mostly used by brands to transport people to their official WeChat accounts.

It’s not something we’ve seen with other social networks around the world (certainly not on the same scale), such as Facebook or WhatsApp.

QR codes are so essential to WeChat that the app has a built-in QR scanner as well as options for people to personalize their QR codes with colors and fun shapes so that they’re not the usual, dull black-and-white pixelated splodge. Brands do the same in China with their QR codes so that they more closely match their branding. Here’s an official ad by Starbucks:

As a result of all that, you’ll see QR codes all over China – at the cash-desk at Starbucks, on the windows of stores, in the corner of your TV screen. The phenomenon is a bit like hashtags – if you’re a brand, celebrity, or media outlets that wants to engage with people, flash your WeChat QR code.

2. Print out a selfie

Some stores in China have found a really fun new way of pulling in shoppers – and marketing themselves at the same time. They’re doing this with a special selfie printer that connects with WeChat.