In the current scenario, organizations are facing continuous onslaughts of grey market trading and counterfeiting. Along with the online propagation of fake products via e-commerce platforms, brand owners are grappling with the challenges of increasing customer loyalty and brand engagements. The answer to most of these challenges lies in digital packaging and customer loyalty program software.
Read on to know how anti-counterfeiting solutions and loyalty programs are keeping pace with the recent trends triggered off by digital transformations. This article will also explain why digitally connected packaging is the way to go in 2020.
Digitally Connected Packaging – an Overview
Technology and digitization have brought about revolutionary shifts in the world of packaging. Virtually all brand owners are enjoying new-found opportunities in the latest packaging trends that are promising just about everything.
For instance, digitally connected packaging modules have eased the movement of products across global markets in a big way. Be it about brand protection, consumer engagements, anti-counterfeiting solutions, customer loyalty, or anything in between, this new packaging technique is dealing with the challenges of reduced trade barriers and expanding global supply chains fitfully.
Need for Digitally Connected Packaging
Traditional brand protection approaches use overt visual features like watermarks, holograms, and color-shifting inks to mark the uniqueness of products. In contrast, connected packaging – backed by digital technologies – support interactive links between buyers and products. As serial number authentication through genuine visible codes can be copied by counterfeiters because of open readability, product serialization is fast replacing item-level authentication in tracking programs.
- These links are used by loyalty, personalized, and digital marketing programs to focus on three core requirements, which are engagement, traceability and protection.
- Digital packaging solutions involve the integration of unique serial numbers on each package. These serial numbers can be either read by humans or verified via text messaging. 2D barcodes are also used to permit authentication through smartphone apps.
- They deliver comprehensive supply chain insights to guide the decision of brand owners and the marketers of packaged products.
Digitally Connected Packaging – Addressing the needs of Brand Owners
Most brand owners are not in favor of placing more barcodes or traceability features on their perfectly designed package. They desire solutions, like fingerprinting or tags, to transform simple package barcodes and meet their core requirements. Their critical requirements are as follows:
- To attain digital means to engage their brands with customers to offer information or rewards.
- Execute a packaging technology that’s difficult to clone or reverse-engineer by fraudulent resellers.
- Use smart reward-information gateways that generate surrogate methods of brand protection.
Along with customer engagement, anti-counterfeiting packaging solutions and brand protection, there’s another urgent need for brand owners – supply chain traceability. Frauds, illegal distribution, counterfeiting and parallel trading have created a strong need for anti-diversion and product traceability programs. Thankfully, all this and more is possible by including digital packaging solutions.
The Benefits of Digitally Connected Packaging
Across all industry verticals, businesses are adopting connected packaging to differentiate their products and brands. Be it pharmaceuticals, food & beverage, or consumer good companies, they are all gravitating towards traceability and interactive digitally-connected packaging solutions; the benefits of which are plentiful:
- Connected packaging allows consumers to find information about product quality, watch videos, play games, participate in rewards and prize draws, receive personalized communication, and engage with the brand – all through the digitized pack itself.
- Connected and smart packaging are helping organizations enjoy a higher ROI via technology. These technologies provide real consumer value and strengthen the brand.
- Manufacturers and brand owners can track-and-trace their product digitally while enabling interesting on-pack experiences for consumers.
- The other benefits of digitally connected packaging include supply chain optimization, enhanced product visibility, higher quality control across the supply chain etc. This, in turn, translates to increased brand recognition and customer loyalty.
Be Future-Ready with NeuroTags
Undoubtedly, connected packaging is here to stay given its plethora of exciting possibilities. At NeuroTags, we help consumer brands acquire, manage and engage with consumers in scalable and economical ways. Integrate our tags on your products to enable higher consumers acquisition from retail channels. Our digitally connected packaging strategies can link your brand to customers through loyalty, warranty and gaming engines. Ask for our smart packaging strategies to take your business to the next levels of success, today.
