Sustainable innovation tapping into new opportunities

SVP Corporate Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs Helen Ledger explains how Pragmatic Semiconductor’s sustainable, NFC-based innovation creates new possibilities for marketers to connect and engage with customers throughout the product lifecycle.

Marketing is powered by data, with the goal of identifying, engaging and retaining customers to support commercial growth. Yet in many instances, once a product is sold, the opportunity to engage with the customer and support and connect with them beyond acquisition is lost.

But what if there was a way to create engagement pre-sale and continue that connection post-purchase?  To develop meaningful, long-term engagement, and deliver richer consumer experiences?

Meet Pragmatic NFC Connect – ultra-thin, physically flexible NFC chips. Sustainable and low cost, they can be integrated almost anywhere, even on curved surfaces, without sacrificing a product’s branding real estate. And they provide a whole new way to drive customer engagement, loyalty and demand.

Better data, better decisions

Marketing data is crucial to building and nurturing a solid brand reputation – connecting with customers in a way that delivers business results, both short and long term. It’s about calculating how best to infuse storytelling with purpose and impact that resonates, showcasing how your brand is different and what need it addresses – or opportunity it unlocks – for your target customers.

With AI fuelling digital transformation across almost every sector, unlocking sustainable item-level data delivers real-world efficiency and insight at scale. By enabling billions of previously unconnected products to generate real-time, context-aware data streams, you can obtain more personalised and precise outputs, tracking parameters such as user interaction by season or location.

This presents a unique opportunity to shape innovative marketing strategies, with personalised connections at their core.

So why hasn’t it happened already?

Low-cost, low-carbon connectivity

While products have long carried web links or QR codes to encourage interaction, these methods lack the one-tap simplicity of connections via NFC. They’re also vulnerable to being covered or substituted.

And while silicon-based NFC tags also exist, cost and durability can be a challenge, and their heavy carbon footprint means they’re not a sustainable choice.

By contrast, NFC Connect is low-cost and low-carbon, and its flexible form factor means is bendable and can fit different un-even surfaces, enables invisible integration into products or packaging such as labels, tags or bottle caps – even on curved or uneven surfaces. Embedding NFC Connect also helps combat counterfeiting with secure, behind-the-surface tags that can’t be easily covered or replaced, vastly reducing the risk of being stickered over or tampered with.

One-tap consumer experiences

The user experience is also simplified: one simple tap of a smartphone – whether iOS and Android – gives consumers access to rich, tailored experiences. Each chip carries a unique ID that can be used to authenticate a product, open dynamic content, or automatically trigger service experiences. And because they’re essentially invisible and imperceptible to the touch, there’s no visible code. No design compromise. And no need to sacrifice valuable brand real estate.

And because each interaction is item-level, you can drive deeper levels of personalised customer engagements and insights via digital experiences – whether it’s exploring the vineyard where a wine was produced, entering a competition or learning new recipes, the options are limited only by the imagination of your creative team.

Secure, sustainable brand protection

The purpose-led design of NFC Connect means they are engineered to meet a specific need, and they’re manufactured sustainably, at speed and scale. And, as part of an NFC tag, they’re not considered e-waste, making them an environmentally friendly way to innovate and engage.

NFC Connect also support digital product passports, enabling transparent histories for components, materials and care – critical for categories such as cosmetics, apparel and pharmaceuticals.

Frictionless marketing opportunities

In a world where businesses are increasingly buffeted by external forces, from compliance to governance requirements, ensuring consumer engagement remains the top priority is critical. Businesses that evolve and grow successfully are those that know their customer inside and out.

Whatever the industry, marketers in all industries can utilise item-level intelligence to deliver unmatched experiences to their customers:

• Premium FMCG and beverages: elevate on-pack storytelling and provenance, activate limited editions, or deliver targeted campaigns and experiences;
• Apparel and footwear: item care, authenticity, and resale enablement; reward for circular behaviours;
• Beauty and personal care: deliver personalised usage guidance and support refill behaviour. Validate authenticity and reduce counterfeits; enable product provenance and traceability;
• Healthcare and wellness: provide verified instructions and adherence data; streamline patient support programmes;
• Toys and games: launch safe digital experiences and seasonal content, directly from the product.

Meaningful, long-term engagement

NFC Connect establishes a digital bridge between brands and their customers, creating seamless, secure and sustainable connections that endure beyond the point of sale. By combining item-level intelligence with invisible design integration, it unlocks new opportunities for storytelling, loyalty and protection – all while delivering actionable data to drive smarter decisions.

In a landscape where customer expectations are rising and sustainability is non-negotiable, brands that embrace frictionless, one-tap experiences will be the ones that stand out, inspire trust, and build long-term relationships.

Learn more about NFC Connect