We speak with Cameron Worth, CEO & Founder of SharpEnd and io.tt, and 2023 Pentawards Jury member, as he shares his expertise in the field, what the future holds for smart packaging, and more.

I’m Cameron and I’m the very proud founder of SharpEnd and io.tt, which are two leading IoT players globally for consumer brands that are embracing connected packaging and products across verticals like CPG, Beauty, Fashion and Drinks.

SharpEnd is a creative and strategy studio, and io.tt is the SaaS platform that brands (and their partners) licence for enterprise-grade identity and experience management. We’re present in more than 130 countries and are managing billions of connected products in real time with live analytics etc. All very fun stuff.

What do you mean by ‘smart packaging’?

Smart packaging is any physical product that carries a digital trigger (like QR Codes, NFC, Augmented Reality) and links to a digital experience via mobile. Ideally, the experience is product and context-specific, and that is when smart packaging gets really impactful.

In your opinion, why are brands starting to adopt smart packaging?

Smart Packaging is used by brands generally in three ways:

Engagement - Having direct-to-consumer interaction through packaging at scale

Traceability - Tracking products through the supply chain to facilitate smarter business and operational decisions

Sustainability - Helping consumers dispose, re-sell and recycle in more responsible ways

However, brands use smart packaging we always advise to make it fun, useful or interesting. A combination of the three is where the magic happens.

Which recent examples of smart packaging have stood out to you the most and why?

Here are a few cross-vertical examples to hopefully give a broader scope of use cases.

Balmain x Pokémon 

We created Balmain's first connected experience with an NFC-enabled Pokémon adventure. Balmain launched digitally enabled Pokémon patches on garments across the US, Europe, and Asia. By tapping the limited edition NFC-enabled Balmain Pokémon patch with their smartphones, fans embark upon the adventure and the tap authenticates the digital twin of their Pokémon patch, opening a gateway to exclusive content and rewards.

Users continue their hunt to 'catch them all' by tapping more patches and eventually unlocking the legendary Pokémon patch to get a chance to win VIP passes to the Balmain festival. The experience connected a physical touchpoint to digital rewards in the Pokémon world, making the renowned luxury brand more accessible to a larger audience than ever before.

Clinique

In a beauty-first last year, we rolled out NFC-enabled products globally, giving consumers an experience-led gateway to exclusive and product/context-specific content. From skin analysis to product recommendations, how-to tutorials, and loyalty rewards, there is a raft of content available for customers to access simply by tapping their smartphone on their jar.

Emilia Clarke fronted the campaign which was the first time many consumers around the world would have been introduced to the concept of smart packaging and what it can give them. The campaign won several prestigious awards and it was an amazing shift in how beauty brands communicate (product to service).

Diageo ‘Message in a Bottle’ 

Rollout of QR-code-enabled bottles that allow consumers to attach a personalised audiovisual message to a bottle, that can be redeemed via the second scan of the QR code, perfect for key gifting occasions throughout the year.

Cadbury’s ‘Hide an Egg’

This was done by someone else (credit where it’s due) but gamifying and digitising the Easter egg hunt through smart packaging is a really nice tool to recruit new consumers. It’s like a gifting campaign but hides behind a ‘treasure hunt’ veneer.

What are the most common barriers you’ve come across whilst working with brands using smart packaging?
While most of the barriers are being addressed (including the great work Pentawards is doing to support the community with better access to information etc.) we see there is some opportunities for upskilling across the wider ecosystem to help things along. Such as a better understanding of:

- Code placement and call to actions

- Concepting of product and context-specific experiences

- Better analysis and leveraging of the huge amounts of data that are generated by smart packaging (and connected experience) interactions

What’s next in smart packaging?

Brands are responding to the seismic changes in consumer behaviour (consumers are engaging more) and larger awareness of QR Code and NFC technologies by implementing full-scale rollouts, properly supported at the Enterprise level with strategy, toolkits and measurement frameworks to monitor and optimise success.

This is the key to success. Pilots are great, but scale is where you get the real juice as a business or brand owner. We’re very excited about the next few years and connecting trillions of objects to deliver fun, interesting and useful experiences to consumers globally.

Find out more about Cameron  here and SharpEnd here.