Case Study – Brand Protection

The Issue

A major manufacturer of print toners suspected that shipments from one of their European plants were significantly lower than anticipated. Potential causes were thought to be introduction of illicit goods into their distribution chain, thereby stealing share from genuine products shipped from the factory.

The Solution

The use of Authentix covert markers with goods and packaging was introduced at the site of manufacture under highly secure conditions. Utilizing 2D barcodes read by online optical readers, unique alphanumeric data linking individual products with customer shipments was collated by our proprietary data management middleware. This enabled the tracking of genuine product through the distribution chain and the identification of genuine products from illicit shipments.

The Outcome

Following introduction of the track & trace system, illicit product distribution was halted. Revenue recovery was significant with initial savings to the manufacturer totaling $5m in the first year of introduction and $13m annually thereafter. With total installation costs of $250K, the return on investment in the first 12 months of operation exceeded 1000%.