Most FMCG and CPG companies are disintermediated from the consumer by a third-party retailer. This is a significant issue when it comes to accessing the one thing that all modern marketing and product development is built on – data.

Whilst you can bridge this gap by accessing sales data via the retailer and you can do consumer surveys post purchase, the gold standard is to have a direct relationship with the consumer.

This is why we believe that digitising your portfolio with connected experiences driven by QR codes and NFC tags is so vital in a data driven marketing world, because it creates a media channel that you own and control and one that is a two-way data exchange between you and your consumer.

So what are Connected Experiences?

Connected experiences are interactions between a brand and a consumer that deliver the consumer value and generate business value at the same time that can be triggered via QR codes and NFC tags.

They can be accessed from a code or tag on a product, packaging or media asset in any environment – retail, transit or home etc.  The addition of these ‘digital triggers’ onto your own product or packaging specifically, creates a media channel that you own, control and for which you don’t have to pay a fee every time you use.

So when looking for efficiencies in your marketing strategy, adding QR codes or NFC tags can really pay off by driving cost efficiencies against media spend in other marketing channels and driving increased sales through better consumer engagement and increased loyalty.

Data collection and insights

One of the biggest advantages of using connected experiences to collect data is that it is immediate and at the real moment of truth for a brand owner or retailer – most often when the product is in the consumer’s hands. What better time is there to engage your loyal consumer or your new consumer, than when they are holding your product and seeking the final bit of reassurance to purchase or the additional benefit or value to choose your brand over a competitor? 

Without this direct connection with your consumer, you are reliant on data from the retailer that is out of date and static, and this in a world that is increasingly dynamic, and always-on. Instead of living in this time-delayed data and insight world, where you find out only after the event whether something worked or not, you could be using QR and NFC on your product and packaging creating a real-time connection with your consumer.

Applications of the data

This data is incredibly useful for areas like customer support, product development, marketing and more.

Connected experiences give you richer data on how consumers are interacting with your products and packaging, because when we talk about data collection, we’re also talking about two different kinds of data.

The first is interaction data – the data generated by the interaction with the QR code or NFC such as where, when or what device etc. The second is the first party data given by a consumer as part of the associated experience – entering emails, names etc as part of competitions or joining loyalty schemes or accessing promotions.

These two types of data are far richer than the data that a brand owner currently has access to via retailer sales data, giving you more scope to apply the learnings across your business. 

The other consideration is that you can capture data over a longer period of time, often post purchase also. In a post purchase environment, the focus is often on areas such as maintenance or support, feedback or satisfaction, the detection of usage patterns – by day, time, location or contextualised by things such as weather (depending on the sophistication of the connected experience) or even upsell and cross-sell.

Once you have captured the data through a connected experience, you can use the data to generate insights that can be folded back into your new product development or to create more personalised connected experiences or recommendations. You can also use the data to enhance your existing customer support capabilities.

Owned vs. third-party data

So by creating a new digital channel on your own packaging, brands can use connected experiences to bring both usage data and first party data in-house - rather than paying retailers for the privilege. And on top of this, the data stays live, and grows over time. If you’re looking to create your own connected experiences - feel free to get in touch and we’ll talk you through how we can help - or you can even start a free trial.