Greiner Packaging, together with its digital technology agency Appetite Creative, took to the recent AIPIA Smart Packaging Virtual Congress to provides some insight into the K3 Packaging solution and explain how a connected experience can enhance and improve recycling rates.

Appetite Creative founder and managing director Jenny Stanley gave an overview of the potential of connected or smart packaging, and said connected packaging enables businesses to be able to harness the potential of their packaging.

“Your packaging can be your strongest marketing asset and really a media channel in itself. I’m sure we’ve all had the challenge of being able to get the right messaging into the small amount of label space that we have on our physical packaging. The best thing about connected digital or smart packaging is that you’re not limited by size or shape,” she said.

“With connected packaging, we can help to drive awareness, engage our consumers and to educate people around things like a new product launch, a new flavour or even a new sustainability campaign.

“We also want to be able to drive sales and collect first party analytics toget closer to our consumer. We can do that through QR codes. The QR code usage has had a massive rebirth thanks to COVID. In fact, it’s almost a 100 per cent increase over the last year.

“So, with this rebirth, we see a massive increase in being able to use QR codes. The global connected packaging market will also be worth more than US$32 billion by 2027.”

Stanley also elaborated on how first party data from connected packaging can be used to boost business.

“We’re able to tell brands things like how many people have scanned the QR code, or how long they spent within the experience itself. We’re able to also track things within the experience,” she said.

“The interesting thing is that we’re able to track all of that in real time, which means you have the ability to get much closer to your consumer and the ability to learn much more about what they want and reposition your marketing and your messaging to be able to get on point to what you want to communicate to your consumer.

“In addition to that, you can run competitions, offer sampling and vouchers, or other different ways to drive consumers across your range, which enhances sales.”

Greiner Packaging market development manager Rachel Sheldon shed some insight into K3 Packaging, which is registered trademark for cardboard plastic combination packaging for branded packaging.

Due to the strength of the cardboard, it dramatically reduces the amount of plastic used, which in turn reduces co2 levels. It’s also fully recyclable. The outer wrap is made of recycled board and the inner cup is made using a variety of recyclable plastics.

“It’s great because you can increase the print area by 100 per cent because both sides of the board can be printed on,” Sheldon said.

“I can use a small area on the base of the cup to print a QR call to action. This would tell the consumer that there is a promotion. So you can actually start collecting some data from consumers that aren’t necessarily going to buy your pack. What we did with K3 Packaging is to fully get into the connected packaging experience, you need to remove the cardboard and scan the inner QR code.

“The great thing is you can completely tailor make this to what you want for your brand. You’ve got full control over what the connected experience is going to be, and you’ve got full use of the analytic data.”