▷ Digimarc Codes

Invisible barcodes thanks to Digimarc technology

Another innovation is on the horizon in the field of automatic identification. After the introduction of the QR code by the Japanese company DENSO (Toyota Group) a few years ago, which made it possible to encode a large amount of information on a small surface, barcodes are now becoming invisible.

The new Digimarc codes of the American company "Digimarc" are encoded on the basis of watermarks, which give the manufacturers of commercial products the possibility to apply the barcode invisibly. In many cases, this is done over the entire available surface of the product, which in turn results in manifold advantages when used at the point of sale.

Speed up the checkout process

The Digimarc barcode contains the unique, international article identification number (GTIN - Global Trade Item Number), which is usually contained in an EAN code licensed by GS1 (Global Standard 1).

A major advantage of Digimarc is the shortening of the checkout process at the cash register. This is possible because both checkout staff and end customers (at self-checkout) can carry out the process much more easily. The checkout staff do not have to search for a barcode on the product and position it correctly, but can hold the product up to the scanner from any direction. This leads to shorter waiting times for customers at the checkout, greatly improved customer satisfaction and even saves the retailer money.

This already leads to the Guinness Book of Records: With an impressive 48.15 seconds, a new speed record was broken, for which 50 items were scanned with the Magellan 9800i from Datalogic. The time recorded was 48.15 seconds - beating the old record of 123.14 seconds by 75 seconds.

Shoppers Experience

With the Digimarc barcode, every product becomes interactive, because with Digimarc every product can offer more additional product information, special offers, recommendations, access to social networks and much more than before.

Digimarc illustration as visible barcode

For consumers, the Digimarc mark offers significant advantages in the shopping experience. Any user of a mobile device with a camera (commercially available smartphones) can point the camera at the Digimarc sign using the app and thus obtain more information: Coupons, product information, offers, recommendations/reviews, recipes and much more. The connection to social media channels and thus the involvement of the customer is also possible in a direct way.

Through the cooperation with GS1, the international standardisation company, the Digimarc code is empowered for all processes within a functional value chain.

Digimarc readers are now available from Barcotec, the Austrian specialist for barcode automation and RFID.