By Chuck Martin
In the Internet of Things, anything that moves can become “connected,” and that goes for bottles of whiskey.
Mackmyra Swedish Whiskey, a distiller of single-malt whiskey, is adding near-field communication (NFC) technology to its bottles as part of a marketing campaign to raise awareness of its Private Cask program that connects with customers through a smartphone tap of the bottle.
The bottles, each with a Thinfilm NFC tag, link back to detailed information about that specific cask, once a consumer taps the bottle with their smartphone. A second campaign will promote a customer-submitted drink recipe competition from recipes submitted by customers.
“As Sweden’s very first producer of single-malt whisky, the Mackmyra brand is deeply rooted in exploration and innovation,” stated Magnus Dandanell, founder and CEO of Mackmyra. “
We’re now taking a similar approach with technology, using Thinfilm’s NFC solution to connect directly with our consumer base, an ideal match that allows us to strengthen and extend the relationships we have with our loyal customers while moving our business forward.”
The idea of connected bottles is not new, but it’s growing. Earlier this year, Malibu and its agency SharpEnd created a campaign by creating 300,000 NFC-enabled bottles for circulation in the U.K. and Germany and Thinfilm-connected bottles were created for El Jimador, the tequila brand of Brown-Forman.
Last year, the winemaker Barbadillo added NFC tags to create 126,000 “smart bottles” sold through supermarket chains.
Even before that, Absolut connected 40,000 bottles of Malibu Rum again with SharpEnd,.
With connected bottles, consumers can be offered an additional experience as a bonus with the product. That simple consumer tap of a bottle also can provide a brand and marketer substantially more data and insight into their end consumers, the campaign performance and real-time activity.
The brands having tried connected bottles already know this. Those who haven’t, have no idea what they’re not seeing.
