How Smart Packaging Brings Customers and Brands Closer

From easing the reorder process to recommending similar products, and proving product authenticity and quality to running rewards and incentives programs, technology has firmly secured its place in the online buying process. But how can these elements be implemented during in-store experiences, or even enhance the receipt of online products?

A popular current trend across the packaging industry, smart packaging utilizes technology to track and manage products more efficiently or enhance customer experiences. Behind the scenes, this means better asset tracking through transport, in warehouses, and on store shelves, all the way up to reaching their intended customers.

On the customer-facing side, smart packaging is used to add new elements that enhance the customer shopping experience and increase brand loyalty. Often implemented through printed QR codes on retail packaging or displays, smart features can help give reliable information to your customers about your product and connect them to your brand in a new way.

Check out our deep dive into the possibilities of smart packaging elements below.

Revealing Relevant Information

Customers value honesty in brands more than ever and want to know exactly what’s happening in their products. As a result, smart packaging offers a unique opportunity to verify the marketing claims that your brand makes with supported facts and evidence that wouldn’t otherwise fit on your packaging.

Is your brand eco-friendly? Offer information about your green practices. Are you operating in an industry like food, beverage, health, or beauty where ingredients are deemed especially important? Offer up a complete and detailed ingredient list and information on ingredient sourcing. Are there convincing dupes of your product on the market? Allow for authentication through customers’ smartphones.

You can even enhance the consumer post-purchase experience by offering digital care or assembly instructions, or recommending companion products that will supplement their use of the product purchased. The options are endless and able to be uniquely personalized to fit your exact product and the needs of its customer base.

Ultimately, adding a QR code with further product information gives you more control over the information customers consume about your brand. This gives a simple QR code on retail packaging or displays the power of increasing transparency and building more consumer trust.

Offering Coupon Codes or Discounts

Unique coupon codes or discounts can be accessed in-store through a QR code, and draw attention to your product through a callout to the special features on packaging or displays. Your brand can specify the amount saved upfront on your packaging, or advertise it as a mystery coupon, enticing more customers to interact with your product in order to reveal the deal.

From there, your company can set up a site that creates custom deals or coupons for customers once they pick up your product, gives more information and allows for an easy sign-up process to your rewards program, or even provide customers with a more streamlined option for entering sweepstakes. Again, the option pool here is as wide as your imagination allows.

Also, smart packaging is an excellent option for cross-promoting similar products in-stores, increasing customer buy-in for your full line of products. You may also find ways to automate refills or repeat purchases, or at least streamline these processes, encouraging longer-term customer loyalty to your brand above competitors.

Encouraging Engagement

QR codes can also lead customers to additional media surrounding your product, like videos, recipes, contests, and more. A prime example here is Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Oreos, which encouraged fans to send singing videos called “OREOgrams” to friends and loved ones in order to enter sweepstakes to meet the singer. Other examples include Pepsi’s 2021 Super Bowl cans, which gave fans access to half-time show behind-the-scenes content and an augmented reality filter to feel more included in the action.

Packaging campaigns aimed at further connecting consumers to your brand have shown as much as a 1,300% increase in web traffic, making this a valuable technique for increasing online engagement. From makeup brands offering exclusive influencer and makeup artist tutorials to food and beverage brands sharing recipes and cocktail ideas, and child-friendly brands offering online games that keep kids entertained during your store run to other brands trying to drum up social engagement by incentivizing likes and follows, there is a world of possibilities for smart packaging to enhance through connectivity and engaging experiences.

This incentivizes additional interaction with your product, keeping it in a customer’s hand, cart, or mind longer during shopping, which can ultimately help encourage customers to purchase or keep it top of mind for later shopping trips. Larger campaigns like the examples mentioned above can even build up a lasting buzz around your brand through social channels, helping you build a larger brand audience for future campaigns.

Jamestown Container’s Smart Packaging Solutions

Jamestown Container has been helping brands face their packaging challenges head-on for more than 65 years, adapting to new techniques and technologies at every step along the way. Experts at every step of the process from design to printing and inventory management to order fulfillment, we use smart solutions to make your processes easier and create packaging that engages customers better.

Contact Jamestown for innovative retail packaging and displays that constantly push the envelope.