Outdoor clothing brand Mammut claims to be making inroads into product digitisation. For this it relies on NFC tags, software and enabling technology from RFID and IoT pacesetter Smartrac.
Both partners will jointly present the initial outcome of their cooperation at NRF 2019. retail’s big show in New York, running January 13-15, 2019.
Mammut Sports Group AG has made clear that it considers NFC and product digitisation as an essential innovation for the outdoor market. At the upcoming NRF 2019 tradeshow, the Swiss premium outdoor brand with roots going back to 1862 will present its first NFC-enabled products.
Mammut is the first outdoor brand with NFC technology and one of the first sports brands with an experience concept underpinning this specific technology. The Swiss brand will also launch a dedicated smartphone app, Mammut Connect, which – when the smartphone is tapped on a product’s NFC touch point – delivers digital content and services to customers throughout the product’s lifetime, as well as supporting retail channels with in-depth product information to enhance the sales process. The app connects the offline with the online world and combines hardware with software in a unique product.
All digitised items come with embedded Smartrac Circus Flex NFC tags. Equipped with the NXP NTAG 213 IC, these tags have been specifically designed to resist harsh environments and have passed a very strong acid test as an integral part of their value proposition and a requirement to fully support long shelf life.
Enabling product digitisation at point of manufacture
To effectively digitise its products, Mammut uses Smartrac’s innovative Smart Cosmos Enablement System in its manufacturing sites. Based on industrial-grade touchscreen PCs with NFC and barcode/QR code readers, these stations can, within a few seconds, give a product a secure digital identity that is stored in the Smart Cosmos Cloud. Hence, brands like Mammut can assign and authorise unique, secure digital IDs to their physical products at remote manufacturing sites. In addition, Mammut uses Smart Cosmos to achieve higher manufacturing process transparency.
“Customers are digital, mobile and social. They communicate with brands, actively contribute and give feedback with much more concrete demands than just a few years ago. This is why Mammut is building an ecosystem. With Mammut Connect – a broad portfolio of real customer added value – we are creating an innovative platform and underlining our ambition to become digital leader in the outdoor sector,” said Oliver Pabst, CEO Mammut Sports Group AG. “Therefore, we selected a partner with a leading role in product digitisation – Smartrac.”
Mammut fully leverages the retail transformation from point of sale to point of experience with services and after-sales offerings for a unique customer experience. It plans to implement NFC technology across a major part of its product portfolio in the years to come – a fact that is both an incentive and an obligation for Smartrac.
“Mammut is a genuine premium brand that places premium demands on its partners and suppliers in general, and on its digitisation partner in particular. We are very honored to be selected by Mammut and at the same time proud that we were able to meet their demands with our market-providing products and solutions expertise,” said Christian Uhl, CEO at Smartrac.
Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_OR @jcIoTnow
