Making sense of 21st-century packaging through an exploration of its beginnings.
Fifteen years ago, when connected packaging was in its infancy, the obvious question was: “What is it for?” There were some obvious answers too, as the idea of tracking and tracing things using codes and readers was hardly new. This was just a way of taking that and other features such as anti-counterfeiting, authentication, and condition monitoring — in a B2B context — to the next level. Less obvious, but soon to make a much bigger impact, was the potential to connect directly with the consumer …