04 May 2016

Constantia brings ‘game-changing’ smart technology to market

Constantia Flexibles and Thinfilm are bringing NFC-based smart tags to the high level wine and spirits market, as Chelsea McDougall reports

When the world’s biggest combined flexible packaging and label converter enters a unique technology collaboration, the industry takes note.

Constantia Flexibles recently announced a partnership with Thinfilm Electronics to collaborate to deliver pressure-sensitive labels equipped with NFC technology. Constantia placed a ‘six figure’ unit order for Thinfilm’s NFC OpenSense technology.

NFC OpenSense tags are thin, flexible labels that can detect both a product’s ‘factory sealed’ and ‘opened’ states and wirelessly communicate contextual content to consumers with the tap of an NFC-enabled smartphone.

Each tag is uniquely identifiable and, when combined with a custom app and cloud-based software, enables item-level communication to a ‘market of one’.

In addition, the tags remain active even after a product’s factory seal has been broken, empowering brands to engage in consumer dialogue that extends beyond the point-of-sale and continues throughout the product’s lifetime, including the opportunity to repurchase.

‘This, in my opinion, is the ultimate tool to allow interaction with the consumer that’s really specific,’ says Dan Muenzer, Constantia’s vice president of marketing. ‘It pushes the interaction with the consumer to a level that’s never been achieved before.’

Thinfilm and beverage brand Diageo first unveiled the ‘smart bottle’ concept at the Mobile World Conference in early 2015. The technology first was showcased on 500 Johnnie Walker Blue bottles available in Thailand. The two companies now aim to bring the technology before a wider audience.

‘We look forward to leveraging Constantia Flexibles’ expertise in order to optimize processes for the integration of NFC OpenSense into packaging and make this powerful technology accessible to their clients,’ said Norway-based Thinfilm CEO Davor Sutija.

The partners will work closely to incorporate NFC OpenSense technology into wine, spirit and beverage labels as well as flexible packaging for consumer packaged goods.