A New Twist on Tamper-Evident Packaging Lets Kraft Heinz Create Better
Consumer Experiences, Pre- and Post-Sale
It can be really satisfying when you find a new way to use an existing
technology, especially when it helps a customer create a competitive
advantage. That’s what happened when we worked with the U.S. based food
company Kraft Heinz and TPG Rewards, on the biggest deployment of NFC-based
intelligent packaging to date. Global brands like Kraft Heinz have similar
challenges: they typically do not know whom their customers are, and how can
the brand create compelling contextual experiences at the retailers’
shelf that will drive a purchase decision?
To solve these challenges for Kraft Heinz, TPG Rewards utilized our
tamper-evident NFC tags to engineer the first of its kind, intelligent IRC
(Instantly Redeemable Coupon) label and used it as part of a promotional
campaign that creates more meaningful connections with Kraft Heinz customers,
inside the store before the customers purchase, and after the purchase when
the product was opened at home.
Repurposed Supply Chain Feature
For some time now, companies have been using our tamper evident
near field communication (NFC)
tags in the supply chain to protect the integrity of products by detecting
whether a package has been opened prior to sale. There is a small conductive
loop inside the
NTAG 213 TagTamper
that indicates package open/closed status. On startup, the tag checks the
loop. A closed loop indicates the package seal is intact, while an open loop
indicates that the package’s seal has been broken and the product may
have been interfered with. If the tag detects an open loop, it records the
status in memory and reports it whenever the tag is read. Originally the NTAG
213 TagTamper was developed for inspectors and end users to check product
integrity before purchase.
It’s a cost-effective, easy-to-use way to ensure that foods, beverages,
medications and other consumer packaged goods remain in their original
condition while traveling through the supply chain and are safe to use. But
with the Kraft Heinz project, we’ve turned that idea on its head.
Instead of the NTAG 213 TagTamper reporting status to inspectors in the supply
chain, it’s communicating directly with consumers, before and after the
sale.
New Experiences, Pre- and Post-Sale
In Walmart stores across the U.S., premium display locations have specially
marked Kraft bunker coolers stocked with Kraft Singles, the familiar blocks of
individually wrapped slices of American cheese. Each Kraft Singles package
carries a brightly colored label with an NTAG 213 TagTamper inside. The label
invites consumers to tap their Android or iPhone smartphone to the package to
view recipes while in store and, after purchase, to play the “Find the
Golden Single” game for a chance to win a USD 50 Walmart eGift Card.
The contextual, interactive web based mobile experience is managed by
TPG’s TAP Technology™ cloud platform.
Pre-sale, tapping the label displays contextual recipes on the
shopper’s smartphone, inspiring consumers to use Kraft Singles in new
ways. Post-sale, access to the mobile browser-based game is triggered by
breaking the tamper loop in the NFC tag (or in simple terms a consumer opening
the package) and tapping the package, to instantly unlock the Kraft’s
“Find the Golden Single” scratch-and-win style mobile game. In
an easy to follow process, the consumer swipes their finger across their
screen to reveal either a winning tile for the eGift Card or a “try
again” option which includes a link to ‘delicious
recipes’ using the Kraft Singles product.
Intelligent Packaging—The New Media Channel
The Kraft Heinz project underscores the idea that product packaging represents
one of the best ways for brands to create a direct, one-to-one connection with
consumers before, during and after the purchase. Intelligent packaging has
become the new media channel in the
Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
sector.
Today’s brand owners and retailers need to compete more effectively in
a mobile-first, omni-channel world. Consumer expectations and behaviors are
fundamentally shifting, as shoppers of all ages increasingly turn to their
mobile devices to consult online reviews, research products, get
recommendations, comparison shop and interact with the products themselves.
Today, nearly every Android and iPhone smartphone can now read an NFC tag
providing brand owners and retailers a compelling reason to use NFC to deliver
better, contextual customer experiences, not just at the point of purchase,
but also after the sale, at the point of use. NFC-enabled experiences foster
deeper consumer engagement and loyalty. They also help brand owners and
retailers gain insights into consumer preferences (product usage data is of
interest for brand owners—first party data), create opportunities for
personalization and, perhaps most important, forge deeper, longer-lasting
relationships with the people who buy their products.
Establishing and Maintaining Engagement
The key to taking advantage of these new, mobile-based opportunities is to
first establish and then maintain a strong direct connection with each person
throughout the consumer journey, beginning before the purchase and continuing
well after the sale.
The thing that makes the Kraft Heinz promotion so exceptional is that it uses
NFC to draw people in before they buy by providing frictionless mobile access
to new dynamic, contextual recipes they can view in store on their mobile
device (recipe content is dynamic in that it changes by location, day of the
week and trending new recipes on social media). NFC then keeps them engaged
after they make their purchase and leave the store by using the tamper-evident
function of the NFC tag to trigger a new interaction once they’re home
and peel open the package. At home an instant win ($50 Walmart gift card)
scratch off game is launched on the shopper phone providing a fun gamified
mobile experience.
A Secure End-to-end Cloud Solution
The promotional platform was designed by NXP’s partner, TPG Rewards, a
leading provider of innovative promotional platforms, such as their TAP
Technology that uses NFC to engage with consumers. The TPG Rewards solution is
a complete, turn-key offering that let Kraft Heinz move from planning and
production to full-scale implementation while working with just one vendor.
Using NXP’s NTAG 213 TagTamper and
NTAG Secure Services
, TPG Rewards created a tailored experience that transitions from an
eye-catching label to an interactive mobile experience that engages consumers
while also generating valuable marketing insights. TPG Rewards chose the NTAG
213 TagTamper because it’s an advanced tag IC that offers a digital
signature and tamper evident feature that lets brand owners protect product
authenticity and integrity, while enabling advanced interactions, pre-and
post-sale.
The NTAG 213 TagTamper is supported by NTAG Secure Services, which makes it
easy to scale, manage, protect and control product identities in the cloud,
giving each product a persistent, addressable web presence and the ability to
exchange data in real time. For the Kraft Heinz campaign, TPG Rewards used the
NTAG Authenticator and Redirector Service, which is managed by NXP in the cloud. As its name implies, the service
verifies tag originality and opening status before redirecting consumers to
the applicable web page. The service tracks analytics, including frequency,
location, time, system and browser and can flag any fraudulent attempts to
access the network.
Look Behind the Scenes
Not only is the Kraft Singles project one of the most unique intelligent
packaging launches to date, it’s also one of the most comprehensive.
Designed from the ground up to be an interactive, engaging campaign, the
initiative involves tag ICs, specially designed and produced labels and a
dedicated user interface. We encountered a number of interesting challenges
along the way, from how to design the label and position the tag, to creating
multi-faceted content and promotional platform that generated a compelling
customer experience while also gathering key pieces of marketing information.
We’ve put together a presentation that describes the decisions we made
as we moved from planning to deployment—and the lessons we learned. My
colleague, Sylvia Kaiser-Kershaw, an NFC expert on consumer engagement and a
board member of the Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association
(AIPIA), will deliver that presentation with
John Galinos
, CEO of TPG Rewards at the AIPIA World Congress in Amsterdam (18/19 Nov
2019).