Beiersdorf-owned security and brand protection specialist Tesa Scribos has launched a laser-inscribed holographic label security system, Holospot, reportedly so sophisticated and hard to copy that it will stop even the most determined counterfeiters.
Holospot is designed with several key goals - to prevent counterfeiting of high value goods like pharmaceuticals, spirits and cosmetics, to stop pirating and diversion of safety-critical components like car and aircraft parts, to enable brand owners to track and trace goods back to source - and to allow consumers to perform a quick but reliable visual check of FMCG goods' authenticity in store or at home.
Already successfully deployed by Beiersdorf on its health and beauty products, and by Siemens VDO to protect car parts, the system entails laser inscribing four different “information layers” into a special PET label medium as a powerful security device. The label substrate is produced by Tesa Scribos in Hamburg, and the laser-written holographic substrate in Heidelberg. To prevent unauthorised copying, the laser embedding process actually modifies the adhesive medium's polymer structure and its diffractive characteristics rather than simply changing the label surface. Consequently each Holospot is unique and, Tesa says, “virtually impossible” to copy.
The four ascending security levels are: level 1, comprising an overt holographic item code readable to the naked eye under diffractive light; level 2, a semi-covert micro image, where the hologram's colour changes under a special magnifier; level 3 - using covert laser projection techniques where a variable shining image can only be viewed under a magnifier, and the fourth and highest security layer, which uses computer encryption technology only readable with a digital reader.
Security levels 1 and 2 are intended for consumer use, and level 3 for retailers, customs authorities, trading standards officers and surveillance companies, with the highest security level features only generally accessible to authorised brand owner personnel.
Tesa Scribos md Joachim Suesse explained that the labels can be applied at conventional line speeds, either directly onto products like plastic shampoo bottles or onto primary board or other packaging. Textiles, glass, plastics board, metal and plastic substrates can all be accommodated. The typical unit cost is “slightly more expensive than conventional embossed holograms”, at 2-5 Euro cents.
While Holospot is only now receiving a firm European push, brand owners like Nivea are already fans. Discovering up to 30% of its haircare products in Russian in late 2003 were counterfeit, with a dramatic 50% negative impact on sales, Nivea began applying Holospot labels to individual packs, simultaneously notifying its Russian distributor network. Just a year later counterfeits had fallen to zero.
Siemens VDO meanwhile, reports success in protecting automobile parts like brake pads and discs, bearings and bulbs; its stresses that both OEM and non-OEM parts are regularly pirated.
To prevent tampering, the labels' structure can be “adjusted” so they become “almost impossible to remove”. Suesse believes the level of security afforded is “unprecedented” in this type of device”. However Holospot can, if desired, be combined with other Tesa security devices like security print, luminescent and thermo-reactive inks.
Figures produced at the system's launch by market intelligence specialist Reconnaissance International highlight the massive extent to which counterfeiting, pirating and diversion now affect world trade. Astrid Mitchell, Reconnaissance director of marketing and research, said some estimates suggest counterfeit goods now account for between 5 and 7% of global trade, costing the global economy around US$1,000bn annually. The picture in some sectors, such as pharma, is especially bleak.
For instance, a study into the proportion of genuine anti-malarial drugs circulating in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam in 2000 showed around a third contained no active ingredient w, while in another sector where consumer safety is key, America's Federal Aviation Authority found that between 1973 and 1994 174 aircraft crashes and accidents were directly attributable to illegal parts.
