Constantia introduces interactive packaging

With Constantia Interactive, the company offers to take on the printing and the implementation of the contents as well as the data management.

The Constantia Interactive offering combines digitally readable packaging material with a digital platform for data management and a smartphone app that is customizable to a range of customer needs. The digital features span from purely informative, such as instructions for use, through videos and games, to contests that can be individually selected by the customer. Data collected can be provided directly to the customer as a part of the service.

Constantia Flexibles stated that it is continually developing new packaging options that are ‘eye-catching and reflect current trends’. A recent survey conducted by Constantia Flexibles on the topic of packaging in the food industry in Germany revealed that interactive packaging makes the product itself more attractive to 49 percent of German consumers.

Constantia Flexibles CEO Alexander Baumgartner said: ‘Besides protection, the role of packaging is also to attract the attention and the interest of consumers. With Constantia Interactive, we provide a packaging feature that is an important marketing tool, one that meets the needs of the end customer and supplies additional information in a simple way.’

For pharmaceutical products, the company noted that patients must have access to adequate information. The Constantia Interactive app offers patients direct access to additional information at any time, and making it safer to take medication it is claimed. A chat bot allows patients to ask individual questions about the product that may not be easily answered by the packaging insert. The package insert itself is also accessible in a digital format through the app if the printed version is lost or mislaid. Using the search function, the text can be combed through for a certain term or terms, and the font size and language can also be adjusted. In addition, a personal calendar function reminds users to take the individual medication and even to refill prescriptions.

In combination with a digital anti-counterfeiting identification, such as watermark or another digitally readable code, Constantia Interactive is also described as an effective means of identifying counterfeit products.

Using a smartphone app developed specifically for each brand, the consumer scans the packaging for a variety of identifying features such as image analysis, digital watermark, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and the like which then appear in augmented reality.

Baumgartner added: ‘In this way, the application is personalized to the respective company or brand and corresponds to the respective brand design. The company itself controls what features are shown. Constantia Interactive is an efficient, personalized marketing tool to “wow” the customer.

‘With Constantia Interactive, we have developed an innovative packaging solution that delivers what companies need as well as giving the customers what they want.’