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Below is our recent interview with Amir Khoshniyati, head of NFC business at Avery Dennison Smartrac.
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: Avery Dennison is a global materials science company. We specialise in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labelling and functional materials which are used in nearly every major industry.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: We think it’s a very exciting new way for consumers to engage with a brand. People are already used to tapping their phones to pay for items using Apple and Google Pay. This same technology can now be used to find out more information about products and gain access to exclusive content and features. In this case, wine connoisseurs can simply tap their smartphone on the label to find out more about the wine, , stories, videos, origin, tasting notes, and a personalised message from creator Jean-Charles Boisset (JCB).
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: Whilst we still love QR codes, NFC has the advantage of taking up no ‘real estate’ on the product and can be branded by the company. A later of security can also be encoded into the chip so that consumers know the product is genuine. We think NFC has broad applicability across a range of products and look forward to showcasing it further over the coming months.
Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: We recently announced the launch of atma.io, a new digital venture that bridges physical and digital worlds. It’s a connected product cloud: an end-to-end platform capable of creating, assigning and managing unique digital identities for every physical item in the world. It’s a core element in our story with JCB and you can expect much more from us on that as we scale it to a wide variety of vertical sectors.
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: We are an official supplier to the Premier League! We supply all the numbers and sleeve badges that appear on player’s shirts. These products are embedded with our smart digital technology which means fans have access to in-app experiences by scanning and authenticating their products. And for intelligent stock control, RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology is applied to every pack. https://www.premierleague.com/partners/avery-dennison
