Why Brands Must Opt For Smart Packaging?

Smart Packaging refers to packaging that is enhanced with the help of technological advancements such as embedded sensors and digital ID’s. The addition of technology like a Smart QR code allows the product to communicate with mobile devices and the Internet to achieve many things that were thought impossible. The Smart Packaging industry is quickly gaining popularity and is estimated to be worth around $27bn by 2024 as per research by Dirk Schaefer and Wai M.Cheun in “Smart Packaging: Opportunities and Challenges”.

Smart packaging can be classified into ‘active Packaging’ and ‘intelligent packaging’ where active packaging is mostly cantered on the food industry. Intelligent packaging is a solution which every industry can adopt to make their operations more efficient and solve other challenges that brands face such as counterfeiting, customer engagement, and brand protection.

Active Packaging has been beneficial for the Food Industry. Such packaging is designed to have oxygen and moisture controllers, ethylene regulators, and antimicrobial packaging. The most important advantage of Active packaging is the reduction in loss of food products and an increase in shelf life.

See Also: 3 Benefits Digital Packaging Can Deliver Your Brand

Intelligent Packaging is a step in the future that opens the door to opportunities like never before. Below, we outline 6 key benefits of Intelligent Packaging for brands. Some of these benefits could accrue to certain brands more than others. The advantage of Intelligent Packaging or Smart Packaging is that the brand can choose to focus on a particular benefit area and customize the solution based on their needs:

1. Offline to Online Marketing – We are all familiar with digital marketing and online retargeting of prospective customers. Smart or Intelligent packaging allows you to take your marketing to the next level by knowing who interacted with your product in the offline or physical world and whether they made a purchase or not. A simple scan of the Digital Id will connect the product with the consumer and give you the ability to then re-target that consumer online in order to convert a lead to a sale.
2. Cross-selling and up-selling – Smart packaging also allows the company to create consumer personas based on a consumer’s browsing or shopping patterns. For example, if a consumer scans a product for the first time, you can give that consumer a special offer to convert that prospect to a customer. If a consumer is already your customer, you can reward that consumer with a coupon code for the next purchase. This also gives brands an opportunity for cross-selling and upselling and influence a customer’s future purchases.
3. Contextual Marketing Campaigns – Smart packaging allows brands to design marketing campaigns based on geographical location up to the city and state level, date, and time of day. This opens up opportunities to customize the broadcast in specific regional languages, run a contest, and promotional activities in one geo at a particular time while the same product on the shelf in another geo does not run that campaign. Customer engagement can become targeted and focused as per the consumer persona, and brands can gather data around their consumers for future product development. These marketing campaigns can be turned on/off remotely via the web in an instant.
4. Improve Decision-making Ability – Intelligent packaging brings to your rich data and statistics around daily activities, which allow companies to identify new opportunities to optimize their marketing efforts and hence improve RoI. This also helps customize the marketing activities and provide overall data access to brand owners for making important decisions.
5. Supply Chain Traceability – In today’s digital world, it is imperative to have a supply chain which will help the company track and trace its products in the value chain, help in serialization, give data around inventory with distributors and retailers and an ability to adapt the supply chain quickly in times of disruption. This can be achieved via track and trace solutions for intelligent packaging.
6. Anti-counterfeit and Brand Protection – The growing threat of counterfeit products has been eating away the profits and has hampered the goodwill of brands for far too long. Smart packaging enables the buyer to scan and identify if the product is authentic or not. Brands can also provide information such as product journey from raw material to retail to build consumer confidence and loyalty. If the packaging is reused and scanned, the brand gets notified automatically about counterfeit products and can generate real-time data to take action for brand protection.

Sepio Products Private Limited is one such company that has worked and implemented smart packaging solutions across industries. Their software is easy to use and can be integrated with any existing ERP and plant operations with minimal changes to existing infrastructure.

If this blog has made you curious to know more, you can simply connect with Sepio Products by emailing them at [email protected] and get a free demo customized for your brand.