who’s fast enough with a qr code scanner to actually use it?
It shouldn't take too long to do. You don't need a dedicated app, so you can just double tap the power button to go straight to the camera, scan it, and tap the link. All of that shouldn't take more than about 4 seconds from when you realise you want to do it, if you have your phone within arm's reach.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes almost as long as that for a person to make that decision, which means you're looking at at least 10 seconds of QR code before it becomes plausible, which is a very long time in ad space—unless you're expecting people to recognise the ad the second time and plan ahead.
TIL I don't watch much free to air television, cause I haven't seen this at all.
Every so often I fire up the old idiot box and see something that looks mildly interesting, but within a few minutes I'm getting hammered with Harvey Norman specials, or being told how much of an idiot I am because I don't have some random insurance companies product, or watching some bloke in a jetpack pretend our NBN will actually be good if only we used their rebranding of Malcom Turnbulls Mess.... and so its back to Plex, or YouTube.
I've watched more F2A TV in the past few weeks than I think I did in the preceding 12 months, but I don't think I've noticed this. How much of a thing is it really?
edit: or maybe it just shows how little attention I'm paying to those ads even when I do have the TV on?