Digital watermarking specialist Digimarc has launched Brand Integrity, a digital platform to give brands and their customers more sophisticated and flexible ways to verify the authenticity of products.
Digimarc’s data-driven approach involves assigning each product unit a serialised digital identity that can be tracked in the Cloud and accessed through a variety of on-pack digital triggers, such as Digimarc digital watermarks. The powerful combination of digitised products and Cloud-based data makes the process of authenticating items more accurate and scalable than traditional physical authentication measures, the company noted. Digimarc added that without a singular source for product data, companies lack actionable intelligence about several product attributes. Digimarc Brand Integrity is intended to help brands to protect their reputations by giving every product a digital presence connected to a Cloud-based record of its journey and interactions. This can prove a products’ authenticity, uncovering counterfeits and their origin, and provide insight into a products’ supply chain so that brands can anticipate issues and act fast.
Ken Sickles, executive vice president, chief product officer at Digimarc, said, ‘As counterfeiters have become more sophisticated and supply chains more diffuse, companies are recognising that traditional brand protection approaches that are largely reactive and reliant on trained inspectors and specialised equipment are both ineffective and inefficient.
‘Digimarc has created a uniquely digital solution that leverages the ubiquity of smartphones and other digital devices to make product authentication much more streamlined and less prone to human error.’
Moreover, Digimarc’s support of dual-factor authentication, such as scanning both QR codes and digital watermarks on a single package, ‘provides a strong defence against bad actors accustomed to easily circumventing lesser brand protection measures.’
Mr Sickles continued, ‘Digitising products with QR codes is a great starting point, but when coupled with a robust product Cloud and covert digital watermarks, brands can gain even greater visibility into their products and offer their consumers the chance to do the same.’
A recent survey of more than 4000 consumers in the UK and US has confirmed how much counterfeiting can alter consumers’ perception of the brands they buy, and the importance of using technology to prove authenticity.
