Is Interactive Packaging in Our Future?

You’re perusing the supermarket shelves when you find a product you’d like more information about. You pull out your mobile phone, scan a two-dimensional barcode and voila!, product information, coupons and even recipe ideas appear on your mobile.

This form of interactive packaging may soon become reality, thanks to a joint Marketing Agreement entered into by DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers (P&IP), Graphic Packaging International, Inc. (GPI), Scanbuy, Inc. and Augme Mobile.

In the future, we may be able to scan barcodes on everyday products with our phones. Photo: Barcodesolutions.com.au

Mobile 2D barcode technology for consumer use is growing in popularity, but isn’t readily available outside Asian countries.

“While text messaging is currently the dominant method of consumer response in mobile marketing in the U.S., it is anticipated that in the near future the North American market will follow Japan’s lead, where over 70 percent of all cell phone users scan 2D mobile codes on a regular basis,” said Charlie Brignac, GPI Marketing Manager for Snap2C™.

Using 2D barcode technology for interactive packaging has been tested in North America but never on a large scale. DuPont and GPI represent a massive number of packaged goods across many industries, making their attempt to bring interactive packaging to consumers a potential for mainstream change.

GPI and DuPont PI&P have demonstrated the ability to place readable 2D barcodes on a variety of packaging surfaces, rigid and flexible.

DuPont P&IP is focusing its mobile marketing efforts on Scanbuy’s 2D barcode called the EZcode. The EZcode format was designed for the camera phone using a program compatible with the world’s most commonly used mobile operating systems.

GPI’s mobile marketing efforts are focused around its Snap2C™ packaging initiative, powered by partner Augme Mobile.  Through a platform called AD LIFE, the mobile marketing solutions company allows consumer interaction with products through 2D barcodes, SMS, audio and image recognition and other mobile consumer response mechanisms.

Just a month after the barcode celebrated its 35th anniversary, technology is proving we’ve come a long way since that first Wrigley’s gum wrapper in 1973!