What is a wine label; or, for that matter, a sticker on liquor and beer? Obviously, the first answer to this question is: to meet the requirements of the TTB (legislation on taxes and tobacco trade and tobacco trade). Once this is achieved, the remaining space on the label can be used for branding and a marketing copy. The fact is that the labels on the bottles have very little space for creativity with messages. The technology now helps solve limited label space using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification / Identification) technology. Touch the smartphone on the NFC (Near Field Communications) label embedded in the bottle and see what appears on your smartphone; assuming there is a label on the label.
Depending on the winery's budget and the number of smartphones included with RFID readers (new smartphones have a built-in reading capability), manufacturers of wine, beer and spirits can communicate directly with the consumer while they are standing in front of the bottle or can. These electronic tags can transmit information in any format. Information can be audio, message or automatically open the website page; the choice depends on the winery or the craft company for the production of beverages. The most economical tag is the use of NFC tags embedded in the label or a very thin flexible film attached to the bottle.
This NFC technology has different names, such as smart tags, tags, and OpenSense tags; The nickname I use is Tap Tags. Smart labels (created in the consumer goods industry) are beginning to appear in food, personal care and pharmaceutical products. Although extremely limited, spirits, beer and wine are recent carpenters. In fact, companies that use smart tags labels are not only major players in the field of food and personal hygiene, but also used by small startups. In principle, tags are a means for product manufacturers to provide consumers with more information than can be printed on a label. But the advantages of such tags are not just in providing additional information, this also applies to branding, loyalty, increasing sales, etc.
QR codes have been around for several decades. They can perform some operations that the NFC tag can perform, but are limited. This is followed by a QR code and NFC.
Twenty years ago, I was associated with a gentleman who is an expert integrator of RFID (cassette radio frequency identification / identification) technologies. His patented technology is used today, allowing casinos to authenticate and track their gaming chips at the casino. Ken Smith, writing for Blackjackinfo.com on November 5, 2012, reported that the Wynn / Encore Casino in Las Vegas is starting to use chips embedded in RFID tags in 2005. Point of view: the level of sophistication offered by tag technologies allows a company to communicate with consumers, even before they buy a product.
Decades ago, bar codes began to allow companies to track inventory, track details and instantly adjust prices. Then came the RFID tags, which enhanced product monitoring capabilities passively and actively; read and write information in the RFID tag. Depending on the capabilities of the RFID tag, information can not only be read from the tag, but the tag can also be written; adding more / different / updated tag information. We do not want to forget QR (Quick Response Code), which most smartphones can read optically and provide a screen response via a link to a landing page. A QR code, invented in 1994, has a similar application, such as a bar code. Today, smartphones have QR reading capabilities and a later antenna for communicating with NFC tags.
The derivative of RFID technology, which is recognized, is quickly an NFC tag. A strong supporter of NFC technology is the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Institute for Food Marketing - the SmartLabel ™ group. They formed an alliance called the Alliance of Trade Partners to explore ways of transparency with fast, reliable, efficient, in-depth product information for the consumer. One of their applications includes NFC tags that transfer a consumer using a smartphone to a navigation landing page. All the consumer needs is to click on your smartphone on the NFC label on the product packaging.
Earlier it was noted that most of the product packaging has limited space for parts. The properties available on the printed wine label may not be sufficient to provide a variety of informational parameters that are interested and / or need different consumers. Solution: why not give the consumer the opportunity to use their smartphone for the “tag tags” on the product and immediately go to the URL / website / landing page that allows the manufacturer to communicate (in print, video or audio) using a potential client, associated with the product. A saying I hear a lot: you can do everything with enough time and money. The same saying applies to NFC technology. For our discussion, I use the fastest and most creatively flexible approach to new label technologies; NFC tag, while not forgetting about QR codes.
This brings us to the “here and now” regarding new technologies that allow wine, spirits and beer producers to communicate directly with their customers. I'm talking about NFC (Near Field Communications), a technology application that Diageo, Coronado Brewing and a winemaker in Spain (Barbadillo Wines) have already studied. In December 2017, Astral Tequila will introduce NFC technology to promote intra-consumer interactions. Reported by a single integrator / manufacturer of NFC applications, an alcoholic beverage company implemented a 30% increase in conversion rate when testing them on NFC labels. Yes, NFC is part of many label options that can be very transparent to the consumer.
The smart NFC tag is actually an RFID tag, which is about as thin as 3 sheets of printer paper or 0.0002 inches. When tags with embedded NFC tags are displayed using an NFC-enabled smartphone, the phone receives the programmed information. For example, a user may be directed to a predetermined site. The website / landing page that the consumer is directed to can be designed as a winery, brewery or distillery. The information in the NFC tag can be approximately 7K in size. Again, larger and more capable RFID tags can offer more features and much more features, but at great expense and integration.
One of the manufacturers of this technology, who demonstrated the NFC options for me, was Metal Craft. “NFC's ability to communicate with customers in the beverage industry is staggering,” said Austin Elling, marketing manager at Metal Craft. “Here are some examples of what can be programmed in one of our NFC tags: vCard to import data into the address book, the URL to open this web address, plain text to display simple messages on a smartphone, phone numbers to initiate a call, geographical location to reveal a specific destination, ”says Elling. “For a business with alcoholic beverages, my experience suggests that branding and creating a direct connection with a customer is in the sweetness of NFC. The winery may decide to use the NFC features for loyalty programs, announcements, promotional samples, initial trials, wine clubs, etc. "
Distracted for a moment. Recently, Anheuser-Busch launched a new beer with the flavor of tequila under the brand Oculto Beer. The label on the beer was embedded tag and battery, which lit his eyes on the emblem of the skull on the label. They positioned a switch where most people would have enough a bottle. Obviously, it was creative and very expensive. Unfortunately, consumers bought beer for the new label technology; consumers did not like the flavor of tequila, and it did not work out.
Relatively inexpensive NFC tags can only be read in a very close range, so the label area containing the tag should be enabled with the smartphone turned on. Some more expensive and reliable RFID tags may have a read / write range of about 200 feet. However, at about $ 0.10 each, NFC tags are available. However, the price does not include the cost of installation and integration with the target landing page. Nathan Chandler writes in the article “How Stuff Works”: “The amount of memory and speed dictate the cost of the tag, which is a critical factor for companies that want to spread information around the world through smart posters or leaflets ... Now the price of tags is about 30 cents apiece, even in bulk, but the price should continue to fall until they are just a few pennies each [source: NFC Rumors], "
Why does a wine, craft brewing or craft company invest in a new job with a label? Here are some immediate marketing applications that come to mind:
· Protect the integrity of their brands.
· Build a comprehensive loyalty program and brand awareness
· Source for consumers to get product reviews
· Detailed product information - tasting notes, outlets, AVA, winemaker information, DtC prices (direct relation to the consumer)
· E-commerce efforts
· Customer Reviews
· Encourage participation in wine clubs and newsletters.
Coronado Brewing at Coronado, CA found that consumers were intrigued by their use of NFC (tap tags) technology embedded in their coasters; “Consumers held coasters to show friends,” reports a press release from the marketing department of Coronado Brewing. Apprentices are a unique use of NFC tags, because the brewing industry is all that is needed to create brand-based tests, positioning both manual and artisanal beer, and explaining quality. The app for the coaster has certainly achieved great goals. Coronado Brewing knows that they must be real, accessible, authentic and support them by providing the message and the experience of the new. As soon as a brand gains loyalty, the brand wins, the company's marketing material says.
Coronado Brewing tested the concept of NFC tags from ThinFilm from San Jose, Calif., And concluded: , ”Commented Bill Cummings, senior vice president of ThinFilms Electronics ASA.
Barbadillo wines, using ThinFilm NFC tags, promoted a contest for consumers on their website created by visiting NFC using a series of fully generated record numbers printed on each cork. Basically, they promoted wine sales at the retail level and at home when wine was discovered. “When using SpeedTap (ThinFilm brand name) tags, consumers can instantly interact with products and brand by clicking on the product tag with their smartphones (no app required), the smartphone,” Cummings said. "The ThinFilm app was not on the label, although it could be, but rather on a narrow collar."
The immediate advantages of ThinFilm were a 10-fold increase in traffic against social networks and an increase of 2.8 times the average time spent on the site. In addition, Barbadillo sold significantly more wine.
In the alcohol business, TTB dictates the requirement of wine labels, and this is a rather complicated approval process to get a label designed to meet TTB requirements. Despite this fact, there is important information for me, and not on the label with wine, which I would appreciate, especially when I am looking for a new wine.
From a good point of view, there are other pieces of information that I would find interesting that would probably make me become a loyal brand. Looking at a 3.5-inch bottle, it simply does not lend itself to a large number of copies of the product; Small printing does not work for me, because I always forget to wear glasses. NFC can come to my rescue if you are looking for more information about wine.
Here is a potential scenario illustrating my point.
Suppose you go to your favorite wine shop to look for a good wine as a hostess gift, and you are interested in learning more about wine than on the label; information such as the proposed recessions for food, information about the winemaker, past wine awards, how big the winery is, comments about wine from other consumers. This is important information that you might like before you buy wine. It may not be the information that saves lives, but it would certainly be good to know. In addition, I would probably become a loyal customer and, perhaps, have joined their wine club.
Today what are my options for more information? I learned a long time ago that large discount retailers are not a reliable source of information. Maybe you go back home and do some research online. But there is an easy way to get more information. The lightest and most economical will be the NFC tag on the bottle; a label or tag that allows consumers to click on the smartphone on the bottle. Once the consumer hits the NFC tag, their smartphone will pull out the website, where all the auxiliary information about the fault will be available immediately. The format of the information can be any.
Any winery or consumer can easily experiment with NFC tags. In fact, by going to Amazon, you can find many manufacturers who sell 6 NFC tags for $ 8. These are thin flexible tags about 1 inch in size, although NFC tags can have different sizes. Then go to YouTube and learn the easy task of writing (programming) the tag. As a consumer, you will begin to wonder why the wine, beer and liquor industry is not working with this technology for its new labels.
Before rushing to this technology, wineries need to understand that there are backward costs associated with finding the best alternative to integrating NFC technology into labels. Then there is a problem with setting the tag with the information that needs to be specified in the tag. Then there is the problem of integrating the interface of tags, customers and products.
So far, we have studied the tags of NFC as a whole, highlighting a variety of applications for the wine, spirits and beer industry and have declared QR codes. It is important to understand that there are similarities between NFC technologies and the omnipresent QR code. Any smartphone with a camera and an app for reading a QR code can extract information from this code. NFC is the latest label technology for getting information through programmed coding. Google and Apple use NFC technology for their payment systems. Most smartphones currently released are equipped with NFC tag readers.
To use a QR code, a business decides what it wants to link a QR code to, and uses a computer program to create an image.
Anyone can generate a QR code for free. I created 2 QR symbols, one for my vCard, and the other one more graphic image and text about Image of Wine, LLC. They were exceptionally easy to create; just fill out the online form. After creating one QR code, I needed to change my email address and phone number. The problem was that I had already printed a new brochure and business cards with an outdated QR code. I had to reorder all the promotional materials.
After experimenting with the NXT NFC tag, I discovered that I can reprogram the tag with my smartphone; it was just one tag.
The static code image should be printed on the advertisement or product packaging. As I found out, if something changes in relation to the product or information, a new QR code should be generated and printed on the new material, and old materials should be removed from the market. In addition, QR codes are read using a smartphone camera, and the success of reading the code can be maintained when the environment is lit, the image quality, the colors used and the camera itself. One good thing about QR codes is that they can be created for free, and NFC tags require creating a design and coding a tag. At the end, NFC tags are more reliable and versatile than QR codes. For large information, both parameters require a landing page.
QR codes can take a consumer to specific information on a website and provide static information; However, the security and convenience of the QR code does not match the security and NFC tags. In addition, the information directly obtained from the QR-tag really depends on the size of the QR-image; the larger the image, the more information. Теги NFC не должны быть видимыми для работы.
Если настройка будет проблемой с бутылками вина, QR-код должен быть видимым для сканирования, а используемые цвета должны быть достаточно темными для чтения смартфона. Кроме того, потребитель должен открыть считыватель QR-кода для сканирования изображения. И наоборот, теги NFC предоставляют полную свободу вариантов дизайна, потому что тег может быть скрыт, а не нарушать целостность образа / маркировки ярлыков.
В 2015 году г-н Тони Росати из Trust Point Innovations написал о QR-коде и тегах NFC. Он сказал: «Метки NFC стоят дороже (порядка $ 0,10), чем печатные QR-коды, напечатанные на этикетке. Разумно предположить, что производители продуктов захотят воспользоваться преимуществами удобства и безопасности потребителей». Далее, «NFC-теги очень проста в использовании - просто нажмите тег. Специального приложения для открытия, оно встроено в смартфон, а теги NFC гораздо безопаснее, чем QR-коды ».
Цель этой статьи - объяснить новую технологию, которую должна изучать алкогольная промышленность, поскольку технология NFC становится основной; это релевантный маркетинговый инструмент, вышитый сегодняшними потребителями.
Потребители, похоже, любят технологии, когда они действительно могут работать на них. Эта же мысль переносится на винодельню, ликеро-водочный завод и пивоваренный завод. При всех разговорах, связанных с этикетками в винной сфере, потребители должны задаться вопросом, почему не теги NFC - удобный, быстрый, гибкий, передовой метод распространения информации и создания лояльности.
