Diageo and Thin Film Electronics have developed something smart for Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It's smart because it belongs to the genre of connectivity devices that's growing so fast it's expected to be worth $9.2 trillion by 2020. It's smart because Johnnie Walker needs to stay in touch with its supply chain and its customers, and this device lets it do both.
The new Johnnie Walker Blue Label smart bottle, unveiled at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, uses extremely thin, flexible electronic sensor tags.
The sensors use Thinfilm's OpenSense technology which links to smartphones' Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities.
The technology plays two roles. It helps Diageo tackle counterfeiting and can track the bottles through the supply chain process and detect if the bottle has been opened or tampered with.
Each of the NFC tags is encoded at the Thinfilm factory with an identifier that cannot be electrically modified or copied by counterfeiters or others attempting to divert the product during distribution. Members of the supply chain can use a smartphone or NFC reader to check the tag on any bottle and determine whether its seal has been broken, which would indicate tampering.
The sensor tags remaining readable even when the factory seal has been broken, providing an additional layer of security in protecting the authenticity of the product
The tag also enables consumers to interact with the packaging to receive product and brand information, including personalised communications. Diageo can change the information and so create real conversations with its users. It could upload promotional offers while the bottle is in-store, for example, but alter that information to cocktail recipes when the sensors show the bottle has been opened at home. Diageo hopes to build strong bonds with consumers and strengthen customer loyalty with the smart bottles.
Unlike static QR codes which are easy to copy, difficult to read and have no sensor integration, the OpenSense tags are permanently encoded at the point of manufacture and can’t be copied or electrically modified.
"As mobility becomes ubiquitous, consumers want and expect brands to follow suit and deliver custom mobile experiences. But today's conventional NFC mobile marketing solutions are not technologically advanced enough to create immersive or customizable consumer experiences.
By leveraging OpenSense™, Thinfilm is enabling the 'smart bottles' to carry digital information that can be accessed via NFC smartphones. Diageo can reap the benefits of the intelligence gleaned from our smart sensors and create engaging experiences for its customers. This is how we will begin to build the real Internet of Everything," stated Davor Sutija, chief executive officer, Thinfilm.
“This is very much a prototype and not a commercial product, and so the team is still exploring with concepts and possibilities, but the main aim is to enhance the consumer experience. What we can say is that the possibilities are endless once the bottle is made ‘smart’—the information/data/content available are in theory limitless,” a Diageo statement added.
