Asia Pacific and the Middle East are emerging as key growth markets for connected packaging, driven by youthful demographics, high mobile penetration and growing regulatory readiness.
Connected packaging refers to smart solutions that transform traditional packaging into interactive digital platforms, typically via QR codes or web-based applications.
“APAC markets benefit from highly mobile-first consumers, favourable youth demographics and growing regulatory momentum. The region is demonstrating particularly strong adoption, with brands taking innovative approaches to gamification and youth engagement strategies,” Appetite Creative Managing Director Jenny Stanley told us.
The firm collaborates with notable brands including Bacardi, Tetra Pak, Greiner Packaging, Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Stanley shared examples of how food businesses are embracing connected packaging to drive engagement and sales.
Adoption rate of connected packaging
According to Appetite Creative, a digital marketing firm specialising in connected packaging, 72.6% of brands are currently using interactive technologies and 88.8% view them as increasingly important.
The findings were based on the firm’s 2025 global study comprising 678 responses, including participants from FMCG/CPG, retail, and marketing firms.
Youth-focused and gamification strategies
Cultured milk drink Goodday – a brand under Asahi Beverages Philippines – worked with Appetite Creative to display QR codes on pack, which directed customers to a web app where they could win prizes, enter major draws, and access engaging content.
Prizes included trips to Japan and Goodday gift packs to encourage participation. The app also tracked real-time metrics like buying habits and engagement, providing consumer insights for future marketing strategies while ensuring GDPR compliance.
“The Goodday campaign has been exceptionally well-received. It generated 13.3m scans, attracted 218m unique visitors and collected 8.2m email addresses. The elements that worked particularly well included instant win mechanics that drove participation, multi-channel distribution across retail touchpoints and an effective data strategy,” said Stanley.
“Our key learnings for improvement centred on increasing engagement depth beyond initial scans, building stronger repeat engagement mechanisms and better integration with other marketing channels. The campaign serves as strong validation of connected packaging’s effectiveness in the Philippines market.”
According to Stanley, brands are similarly using connected packaging in the Middle East.
For instance, Sunny Oil in the UAE is running an AI-driven personalisation, where customers can select ingredients from the ‘My Fridge’ list, which suggests recipes combining existing items found in the fridge while ensuring that there will be no repeat recipes.
The ‘Daily Hacks’ section can store up to 50 recipes to encourage users to keep returning for inspiration.
There are also family-friendly games, such as the ‘Sunny Pathway’ where players pour oil along a path as fast as possible or land a bottle upright in ‘Sunny Bottle Flip’. Top scorers get a chance of winning prizes and discount vouchers.
“Apart from Sunny, we are currently working on several other notable campaigns in the APAC food and beverage space. Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company (KDD) in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has generated over 100,000 scans. Suntop in the Middle East launched a One Piece partnership that has achieved over 500,000 scans. Gulf Union Foods Co. in Saudi Arabia attracted 227,000 visitors and has extended their campaign to 12 months based on results,” said Stanley.
These marketing projects reveal an increasing reliance on interactive connected packaging, which can provide cost benefits on top of increased engagement.
Connected packaging can complement traditional solutions
While connected packaging offers dynamic options compared to its traditional counterpart, Stanley emphasised that the two are actually complementary.
She shared that connected packaging can deliver 14% scan rates compared to 0.10% click-through rates for digital ads, with consumers spending 2–3 minutes in active sessions.
“For data capabilities, it provides first-party, real-time information that brands own, contrasting with the ‘rented’ audiences of traditional digital platforms. The cost efficiency is also compelling, with zero ongoing media costs compared to the average $3–10 cost per thousand (CPM) impressions typical of digital advertising,” explained Stanley.
“Importantly, connected packaging helps to amplify traditional marketing channels rather than replacing them, creating a complementary ecosystem.”
The firm enhances traditional packaging by focusing on three objectives.
“Appetite Creative’s work with food and beverage brands centres around three core objectives. First, we focus on driving measurable consumer engagement, achieving scan rates of 14% compared to the typical 0.10% click-through rate for digital ads,” said Stanley.
“Second, we prioritise delivering actionable consumer insights and first-party data that brands can use for strategic decision-making.
“Third, we enable brands to respond to market changes with greater agility. Our approach has generated sales increases of up to 30% with zero ongoing media costs, showing the commercial effectiveness of connected packaging solutions.”
The firm believes that packaging can be a powerful marketing asset – it is already found in the hands of customers, and its potential can be amplified if turned into an interactive media channel.
