Even before the start of Labelexpo Americas in Rosemont, IL, west of Chicago on Tuesday, the impact of technology in the labels market was apparent.
The rapid onboarding process for show access revealed the use of near-field-communication (NFC) tags on badges as part of this year’s trade show experience. It was an approximately 1.5-inch diameter Smartrac inlay.Â
Coincidentally, my first visit inside Hall A was the entranceway booth location again this year as four years ago for Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials. There I met with Sarah Minter, marketing communications manager, label & packaging materials, North America, who confirmed that the company was the supplier of the engaging badge technology.
It was fitting that Minter then demonstrated the AD-enabled interaction by holding her badge near a small device mounted on a Touch & Collect sign. What was even more impressive was receiving an email from Labelexpo later that afternoon. A link in the email led me to a personal portal web page with links from all my NFC badge interactions along with badge scans from my visit all neatly arranged in reverse order of visit time. The downloadable materials that were available included vendor-provided PDF documents along with links to product details.
As remarkable as that all was, the real star of the AD booth and subsequently of the show was sustainability in labels.
You’ll find three Avery Dennison innovations in this short slideshow gallery that are in rollout in North America. These include post-consumer recycled content recycled content label films, linerless labels, and labelstock redesigned to optimize rigid container recycling. Those three pathways to improved sustainability were a reoccurring theme throughout the show and ones we’ll explore again in about two weeks.
