Drivers

Why "authenticate" a product? It takes time, costs money, it's hard to quantify the benefits, and its inconvenient.

When you stop to consider these questions, you realize that there needs to be a Driver. Some reason that tips a company over the edge to take the time, effort and cost to make it happen. Probably the easiest way to rank these is to think along two axes, one being urgency and the other being the magnitude of risk.

The easiest driver to understand, and the most urgent, is regulatory. Pharma companies will be spending millions on serialization over the next couple of years, not just because they think its the right thing to do, but because governments have required it. And when a regulatory driver is present, the cost goes from being a "hard to quantify" to a "cost of doing business".

Next is a legal driver. IMO, actual or potential liability & litigation for the effects of a counterfeit product is a much stronger motivator than even the threat of the loss of sales, profits or brand image. It's really hard to quantify how much these issues effect a company, and there's no requirement to report them, but a negative verdict in a liability action almost invariably becomes public, along with the damages awarded.

Finally, value based drivers (loss of sales, profits and/or image) are the ones we're most familiar with, and hear about most often. But they are the hardest to quantify, both on the front and the back end. 

Hard to value what you should spend, when you don't know what it's costing you, or what the return will be. 

 

Holograms and Fishing Lures?

I was visiting our local history museum in Hood River this weekend, and had a nice flashback to an earlier time.

Before there were holograms for security, there had to be a way to reproduce them reliably. That way turned out to be micro embossing. But there was micro embossing well before there were embossed holograms. And the things it was used for lead to the photos below.

The Diffraction Company, originally based in Towson, MD was embossing ruled diffraction patterns and making labels and other materials for years before the advent of embossed holograms. One of their biggest customers pre-hologram was Luhr-Jensen, the fishing lure company which was started and grew here in Hood River until it was sold in 2006. 

Diffco was a pioneer in getting the embossed hologram industry started. Many of the Diffco employees continue to work for OpSec, which acquired the company in 1995. 

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Ruled diffraction patterns on Luhr-Jensen lures.

Ruled diffraction patterns on Luhr-Jensen lures.