During a forum on brand protection, last week, Richard Einhorn, Director, Product Authentication from Crane Authentication spoke about the challenges being faced by brands around the world, in an increasingly fast paced economy.
Einhorn was addressing the Brainlinx 5th Annual Brand Protection Forum which raised awareness on issues such as Anti-Counterfeiting, Online Brand Protection, Cross Border Product Security, Cyber Crime, IP Legislations, Global Cloud Security, Serialization, and Track & Trace Strategies.
“The transaction of buying a product happens automatically, and consumers only glance at packaging and labels.”
Richard Einhorn noted how the average consumer interacted with a product’s packaging for fewer than 5 seconds. The transaction of buying a product happens automatically, and consumers only glance at packaging and labels. This situation of inattentiveness is only heightened by environmental conditions such as poor lighting, only to be accentuated by the fact that statistically, fewer than 5% of QR codes are actually scanned.
This situation unfortunately opens quite a wide window of opportunity for the ill-intentioned, and their goals. This means that all the resources that companies invest in digital engagement for their products, are seriously endangered and the value for the consumer is potentially lost.
Richard Einhorn explained how the ideal Public Security Feature finds the sweet spot between Counterfeit Resilience and Ease of Use. This basically means that a successful security feature should be hard to reproduce and fake, while being easy to use by an untrained or less than attentive customer. Objective evaluation is key to counterfeit resistant intuitive features.
Unfortunately, criminals are quick to pick-up on new materials which make it easy to simulate security features, using colour-shifting films and decorative foils. Consumer materials can make for very convincing simulations.
The human brain is drawn to movement and contrast. The effects easiest to verify are also the most secure. Easy-to-perceive icons and quick movements are intuitive.
“Micro-optic technology uses quick, fluid movements which simulate a 3D effect – effectively attracting an intuitive curiosity.”
With all this in mind, drawing on decades of research and development in the currency production industry, Crane Authentication has developed Micro-optic technology which is intuitive and easy to use. Micro-optic technology uses quick, fluid movements which simulate a 3D effect – effectively attracting an intuitive curiosity.
The technology is based on similar high-security technology as used in Currency.
Micro-optic technology also provides for the opportunity for codes and serialization numbers to be integrated into the 3D Micro-optic movement. This has been proven to attract more attention, longer interaction and higher code scan rates.
Brands can also choose colors that match their brand guidelines for better integration with their brand identity.
“And finally, central bankers from around the world, can’t be wrong” Einhorn said in his concluding remarks. “They have trusted Crane with the production of their currency for a long time. Crane’s 3D Micro-optic technology is now available to protect commercial products, providing the same standard of security and peace of mind for product owners.”