Nearly 90 years ago, Avery Dennison was founded on a single groundbreaking idea — the creation of the world’s first self-adhesive label.
From that moment to now, we’ve continuously asked ourselves: “What if?”
These two words embody our thirst for knowledge and our passion for problem-solving. We continue to create a world of possibility, from digital tags that stop clothing from going to landfill, to smart labels that assure medics a vaccine is safe.
By giving products unique digital identities, a host of business challenges can be overcome.
Making Possible
We can only bring our groundbreaking ideas to life if we fully understand what is on the horizon. Key to this is identifying the top challenges and opportunities businesses face.
To find out, we teamed with Forbes to produce an Insights Brief entitled: Bridging The Divide: How Connecting Physical And Digital Worlds Will Define Enterprise Solutions To the Next Decade’s Challenges. The report features data, perspective from our business leaders, and spotlights how we are helping customers. It also sets out the top four business challenges on the horizon.
1. Enabling sustainability, circularity and transparency
Sustainability is both a societal and business imperative. Forbes research found that 68% of CFOs plan to increase ESG and sustainability initiatives next year. The research also reveals the vast majority (82%) of enterprise leadership teams now include a chief sustainability officer.
Sustainability legislation will tighten in the coming years to enforce circular models of production, and discourage pollution and over-production. At Avery Dennison, we work in the apparel, pharma, hospitality and many other sectors to design transparency and efficiency into supply chains. For example, Reynolds, a UK-based food service distributor, is using our Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-tagged cartons and has succeeded in reducing over-ordering and packaging waste.
2. Creating more efficient and accurate supply chains
Global supply chains are highly vulnerable to disruption. The 2024 Forbes CxO Growth Survey found that 63% of CEOs cite supply chain issues as a major external threat to growth. Further, outdated technology is preventing companies from improving visibility and agility in their operations.
Barcodes require manual scanning, whereas RFID allows companies to track moving targets more accurately and time-efficiently. Shipping giant UPS is using RFID-enabled labels and automated sensors to reduce sorting and delivery mistakes, for example. Advances like this can help businesses optimize their delivery costs, reduce CO₂ emissions, and drive customer satisfaction.
3. Reducing waste throughout the product lifecycle
An estimated 1.05 billion tons of food is wasted worldwide every year. Eliminating waste reduces emissions, and improves a company’s profit and loss statement.
One way to preserve food freshness is to create high-performing resealable packages. Swiss food conglomerate Nestlé partnered with Avery Dennison to create new resealable adhesives that can be resealed multiple times, reducing spoilage and packaging costs. The program yielded such impressive results in Columbia for the Cocosette, Morenitas and Deditos brands that it’s likely to be rolled out elsewhere.
4. Creating deeper connections between brands and consumers
Customer engagement, on a meaningful and long-lasting level, is hard-won in today’s crowded market. However, the latest intelligent labels using Near Field Communication (NFC) can unlock product and marketing information that is more likely to resonate. By scanning a QR code on a clothing label with their smartphone, shoppers can be assured of a designer’s fair trade practices, or educated about repair and recycling, for instance.
Recently the NBA’s Sacramento Kings partnered with Avery Dennison to leverage this technology, and put a new spin on their annual fan appreciation night. At the last home game of the season, every fan received a free team shirt on their seat. Scanning the QR code on the shirt’s label unlocked a microsite featuring a thank-you video by the team’s head coach, and links to exclusive giveaways. Over 5,500 contest entries were made, triggering two-way digital conversations with fans that will endure for seasons to come.
At Avery Dennison, we believe smarter ways to produce and consume goods are well within reach, so long as we continue to ask ourselves ‘what if?’ We’ll keep collaborating and innovating to find the necessary solutions that make success possible.
By addressing the four challenges described above we can help businesses across many verticals unlock value, and pave the way to scalable, sustainable growth.
Discover how Avery Dennison is Making Possible.
1 https://www.averydennison.com/en/home/making-possible.html
2 https://forbes.docsend.com/view/gvx333t9z6dr2xvf
3 https://forbes.docsend.com/view/gvx333t9z6dr2xvf
4 https://forbes.docsend.com/view/gvx333t9z6dr2xvf
5 https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/world-squanders-over-1-billion-meals-day-un-report
6 https://apparelsolutions.averydennison.com/en/news/avery-dennison-becomes-official-embellishment-partner-of
