Avery Dennison Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS), vendor of apparel and footwear branding, labeling and RFID solutions has joined with IoT Smart Products Platform Evrythng to seal an Internet of Things deal to ‘switch on’ the apparel and footwear industry.
The two vendors are working together to enable a minimum of 10 billion apparel and footwear products for some of the world’s largest fashion and performance brands to be ‘born’ with unique digital identities and data profiles in the cloud over the next 36 months as Web-ready physical products.
The key focus of the alliance is about making it a lot easier for everyone who makes, sells, or uses footwear, apparel and accessories products to benefit from the application value of those physical things becoming digital.
This deal integrates Avery Dennison’s network and knowledge of the apparel space along with their hardware and manufacturing with Evrythng’s IoT software technology for digital identity and data management, represents an industrial scale digital enablement of everyday products. This enables apparel, accessories and footwear brands to deliver digital applications with their physical products.
Once connected to the Web in this way, products can interact with smartphones to trigger applications and services that connect more intelligently with consumers. Brands will become more interactive, providing personalized, real-time mobile experiences and content for each individual consumer and each item of clothing. Products will also become smarter, using real-time data analytics to tackle problems like product authentication for better brand protection and increased efficiency in supply chains.
Digital product applications allows data about product materials, manufacturing and distribution can deliver total transparency to consumers about where the product came from and how it was made. Consumers can interact with their products to unlock personalized digital content, services, offers and extras, or link to third-party apps for other rewards and benefits.
Product Reordering can also be triggered with consumers interacting with products by using their digital identities and their smartphones to reorder products they like or access similar products that they may want to purchase. Brands can put stronger protection programs in place with item level digital authentication and real-time analytics, tackling the challenge of goods sold being counterfeit.
A product that carries data about where and when it was purchased cannot fraudulently be returned, helping retailers address fraud that costs the industry billions of dollars globally each year. Clients gain access to personalized content on their smartphones like personal styling suggestions, new season tips, health and fitness content and event invitations, which are triggered by the product and based on past purchases.
Recycling becomes a lot easier for consumers and brands alike when a product can trigger specific information on what to do when it reaches its end-of-life, including how to upcycle for a second use or how to find the nearest recycling center.
At an industry level, this partnership illustrates a business model for how packaging and device companies can participate in the Internet of Things, accessing new revenue and application opportunities with digital capability. Evrythng’s Active Digital Identities make it possible to give billions of items this digital capability that can enable value for many others in the ecosystem and down-stream in the value-chain.
With billions of apparel and footwear items now Born Digital, it creates an environment for designers to conceptualize and realize product experiences that are both physical and digital at the same time. The scale of the enablement brought to the apparel industry by Evrythng and Avery Dennison RBIS creates a critical mass, and the race is now on to see the most effective experiences and business application benefits.
