When can a trend be called a trend? Maybe when a growing number of dynamic and future-oriented brands opt to make their products smart, by embedding Near Field Communication (NFC) chips into them, and building innovative solutions around those tiny electronic tidbits.
This is what Khongboon now does, and what the likes of Spyder, Dyne and Hari Mari also do. They all encourage their customers to tap their smartphones or tablets on the embedded NFC chip in the activewear, ski outerwear, footwear, ‘whateverwear’ they sell, and then provide their customers with access to a wide range of exclusive and rewarding pieces of content — content that creates experiences, which constitute added value.
That brings us back to our latest example, global swimwear company Khongboon Group. Khongboon launched a new women’s brand, Khongboon Activewear (KBA), which does what we just described: it utilizes NFC to deliver mobile engagement throughout the lifecycle of activewear items.
Provide user experiences that will be remembered
Each piece within the new collection has a very robust NFC tag embedded under the KBA logo, and utilizes a solution to display a dynamic mobile user experience each time a Khongboon Activewear customer taps the logo with her NFC-enabled device. The experience includes product information, a catalogue of the activewear collection, real-time social media feeds, and a countdown to the next content update. To make tapping even more rewarding, upcoming releases will include exclusive promotions and contextually aware components. Then, Khongboon Activewear customers will experience even more personalized interactions, based on information about nearby gym locations and running paths, or even fitness tracking.
How to make the forefront your brand’s natural habitat
Making its activewear products smart was quite a logical choice for Khongboon – a company that always aims to be at the forefront of quality and design with its swimwear. When launching its new activewear line, Khongboon also wanted to be at the forefront in terms of consumer experience innovation and functionality. By utilizing the NFC-based solution, Khongboon has created something genuinely innovative in the swimwear business: a platform to continually improve the way “digital native” consumers interact with the activewear products they purchased. In effect, the brand turned its ‘offline’ activewear apparel into ‘living products’ — products that come to life in the online world of consumers and brands.
Now, can that be called a trend? Who cares – as long as your brand is leading it!
