Consumers are more conscious than ever about what they're purchasing and seek products that align with their values. Regardless of industry, traceability and transparency are top of mind. Shoppers want to know where goods come from, how they are made, and whether they're produced ethically and sustainably.

Transparency & traceability across industries:

• Fashion: 69% of consumers state sustainability is a critical decision-making factor.
• Food & beverage: 81% of customers deem transparency "important" or "extremely important."
• Beauty & cosmetics: 97% of UK women want beauty brands to be more transparent about the ingredients in their products.

Brands now face the difficult challenge of communicating their traceability efforts to customers — enter QR-connected packaging.

Connected packaging integrates QR technology across products, labels, and more. It lets customers interact directly with a brand and their products. QR codes digitally activate packaging and link customers to contextualized landing pages that provide them with relevant content.

In a single scan, brands can instantly share detailed product information, ingredient origins, product traceability, recalls, sustainability practices, and more with consumers.

Consumers can track a product's journey from farm to shelf to table. Or whether clothing was made from sustainable materials and offset carbon emissions.

Establish brand integrity and customer trust

Companies can use connected packaging to establish brand integrity and customer trust. By sharing information about their products' origins, ingredients, and supply chains, brands can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and ethical business practices.

Brands are already using connected packaging to promote trust and transparency. Tyson Foods incorporated QR codes across its chicken products. Consumers can trace the origin of the products and find out when the product entered the store.

Transparently capture customer data

Consumers are cautious about sharing their data with brands and are increasingly aware of how it is used. I'm sure you've noticed the massive increase in pop-ups on all your websites and favorite apps asking you to accept Cookie Policies. This is because international privacy laws like GDPR, IDFA, and CCPA require companies to clearly state their data-gathering practices with consumers and require an opt-in. How brands historically collected third-party data without users' consent is no longer feasible.

QR-connected packaging lets brands gather valuable zero-party customer data both transparently and consensually. Customers can voluntarily share their data with a business when they scan a QR code. Giving customers more control over their data increases transparency and builds trust between your brand and customers.

Simultaneously by tracking consumer interactions with products, brands can learn more about their customer's preferences and purchasing habits. Companies can use these insights to tailor their products and marketing strategies to suit their customers' needs, delivering useful and relevant information — a win-win for brands and consumers. Brands can monitor the success of their campaigns in real-time, A/B test, and revise anything that's not performing efficiently. They know when, where, and how many customers scanned the code and engaged with their pages.

Yazoo Yaupon, America's only native tea company, added Digiphy QR codes connected to Storyline pages across their tea packaging and collected thousands of emails to reach customers directly.

Additionally, Musee Bath, an all-natural, handcrafted bath company, captured hundreds of emails at a sales and marketing event in one day. Over 40% of customers returned to the Digiphy Storyline after their first visit. Musee added Digiphy to its packaging and currently sees a +20x ROI.

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Combat corporate greenwashing to cultivate trust

Over 68% of CEOs admitted their company has participated in corporate greenwashing seeding consumer distrust. To avoid greenwashing, brands need to support their sustainability claims with transparent and traceable data and present it to consumers in an easily digestible and accessible way.

QR-connected packaging lets consumers access information about the product's traceability, ingredient sourcing, production process, farmers, and environmental impact. Whether a consumer is shopping in-store or using a product at home, they can instantly access the information they need to make better purchasing decisions for people and the planet. QR-activated packages enable brands to show, not tell, consumers about their practices to cultivate trust.

Patagonia includes QR codes on its clothing tags, giving customers insight into how the brand's fabrics are organically and sustainably sourced, with over 87% of its clothing being made of recycled materials.

QR codes help brands fight counterfeits

Beyond just ingredients, QR code traceability combats counterfeit. Counterfeit goods and knockoff products cost the global economy roughly $500B annually. To verify authenticity, brands can add QR codes on tags, product packaging, shelf-talkers, inserts, and individual items. Everything equipped with a QR code has a unique digital identifier that, when scanned, directs shoppers to a web page verifying the authenticity and value of the products while giving brands a way to communicate with customers directly.

The apparel company, Ralph Lauren, put QR codes on their Polo brand clothing to combat counterfeits and engage with customers. When scanned, brands send customers to a website that authenticates the clothing and provides styling tips and care instructions. On top of avoiding fraud, Ralph Lauren's CEO wants to use the data from the QR codes to streamline their supply chain and use it to inform what items they continue to produce, helping them be a more sustainable company.

Digiphy amplifies traceability and transparency

Digiphy elevates traceability and transparency efforts through connected packaging and contextual storytelling. The platform's no-code landing page builder creates mobile-friendly Storyline pages connected to unique QR codes. Brands can integrate traceability information into their Storyline pages via GS1, .xls, and other data sources to promote transparency, verify sustainable claims, avoid greenwashing, and authenticate goods.

With Digiphy, brands can easily track their products' origins, ingredients, and product journeys. They can share this information with their customers using connected packaging. This verification is essential for building trust with customers, who are increasingly skeptical of marketing claims and want to see evidence of a brand's commitments.

Additionally, brands can collect valuable zero-party data like emails and valuable insights from customers, demonstrating their efforts in data transparency. Integrate your existing marketing analytics with Google and Meta to track customer information in a single platform, re-market, and A/B test promotions to improve overall digital marketing effectiveness.

Consumers' growing concern for sustainability, ethical production, and transparency drives brands to adopt more traceability and transparency measures. QR-connected packaging and storytelling with no-code marketing platforms like Digiphy enable brands to communicate directly with customers and share detailed information about their products, traceability, and sustainability efforts, as well as share other useful and relevant product information — videos, recipes, uses, and storage tips, AR, etc.

Digiphy provides customers with the information they need to make informed decisions and build long-lasting relationships based on trust and transparency while unlocking new revenue and increasing ROI. With Digiphy's QR-connected packaging and elevated storytelling platform for physical products and assets, brands can establish their integrity to cultivate trust, gather valuable consumer data, combat counterfeits, and contribute to a more sustainable and ethical industry.

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