Cut out counterfeit attempts? Reid Fruits and Laava show it's possible

Over three years, Reid Fruits drastically reduced the number of counterfeit attempts on their premium Tasmanian cherries, sold in Asian export markets where the brand was in high demand and had a strong reputation that was at risk from inferior products sold under fake Reid Fruits branding.

In the 2019-20 season, in a bid to fight the fakes, Reid Fruits introduced Laava Smart Fingerprints® on its cherry boxes bound for 20 export markets. The result: only 10 counterfeit attempts, all of which were automatically stopped by the Laava platform.

Backing up their success in 2020-21, the number of counterfeit attempts dropped even further, to just three: a 60 per cent reduction over the previous year.

And in the 2021-22 season: ZERO. Thousands of scans of Laava Smart Fingerprints were handled by the Laava platform across Hong Kong, China and other key regional markets. During this time, Laava's sophisticated logic and platform detected zero counterfeit attempts - something which was rife only a few short years ago. Conclusion: The counterfeiters had moved on to exploit less protected brands who had either yet to invest in this calibre of anti-counterfeit measures, or who were choosing to "hope for the best".

Tony Coad, Reid Fruits' Manager of Marketing and Sales, says the technology has been a game changer. "In the cherry season just gone (2021/22) we didn't receive any reports of counterfeit products in market or any sign of attempts to counterfeit our cartons or labels," Coad said.

"I would highly recommend that businesses explore the opportunities and benefits that the Laava® solution has to offer."

A sophisticated and evolving solution suite

Year after year, Reid Fruits has leveraged more of Laava's unique combination of brand trust, product traceability and digital storytelling capabilities. The exporter of Tasmanian cherries has elevated its brand to be a leader in the premium cherry market in Asia.

Now entering its fourth year, the partnership has led to a highly sophisticated and comprehensive solution that is the envy of many in the market – taking in not only product authentication and brand protection but also document verification of distributor certificates. Well-executed marketing campaigns in key export markets tied it all together, with influencers sharing their passion for the premium-quality product that Reid Fruits is known for.

As a result of the campaigns, Reid Fruits saw significant growth in followers and engagement in the target demographics, with engagement on their profiles up 175 per cent year on year – almost doubling follower counts. Some posts resulted in 408,000+ views. Reid Fruits "brand power" now rivals many large multi-national competitors in key export markets.

Leveraging the power of Laava's "partner ecosystem"

Laava tapped into the company's extensive partner ecosystem, accessing a pool of world-class adjacent expertise in:

• Marketing and branding, including social media influencers in customers' local markets
• Provenance, analytical and forensic sciences
• Supply chain traceability
• Pre-press and digital file preparation
• Printing and packaging.

Empowering customers through Laava's digital platform and "self serve" tools

Reid Fruits has utilised the 'Laava Manage' platform to great success - a full digital platform designed to make it easy for Laava customers to order and manage their own Fingerprints, create and manage their own landing pages, and analyse the resulting scans to derive powerful insights.

Building capability and achieving breakthrough results, year-on-year

Reid Fruits strong and consistent partnering with Laava and investments in market education saw their impressive initial results strengthen with each season:

• 2019-20: dramatic reduction in counterfeit attempts.
• 2020-21: further innovation with additional partner forensic and traceability capabilities.
• 2021-22: a complete connected packaging solution for counterfeit prevention, brand protection, digital storytelling, and customer engagement in a highly competitive environment.

Tony Coad, Reid Fruits' Manager of Marketing and Sales said it was inspiring to work with Laava's professional, innovative team. "This has led to opportunities for additional promotion and direct connection with our customers and end consumers – through Laava and our collaboration with RooLife – as well as enhanced protection of our brand, through Laava and the provenance verification work we are doing with Source Certain," he said.

How leveraging advanced technology leads to brand confidence and value

In January 2020, Laava's computer vision technology captured actual vision of a real counterfeiting attempt in China for the first time, and stopped it.

Along the way, Reid Fruits' confidence in Laava and partners was such that they expanded the relationship to also adopt the customer engagement features on offer – and then the document integrity offering.

Building the brand by engaging passionate customers

A cross-platform social media campaign in China, led by Laava partner RooLife Group, saw followers and engagement sky-rocket in the target demographics – cementing the Reid Fruits brand as the authentic, trusted exporter of highly sought-after premium Tasmanian cherries.

The cross-platform campaign (across WeChat, Little Red Book, Bilbili and Tmall) had enough wow factor to draw eyes in the lucrative Chinese market – utilising content such as livestream, video, influencers and more.

Influencers created engaging posts showcasing their excitement at receiving and unboxing their new-season Tasmanian cherries, as well as tutorials on testing cherries for freshness and making cherry-based recipes. Competition click through rates (CTRs) were impressive, with the native WeChat mini program delivering 28 per cent CTR, and the web-based competition delivering 37 per cent CTR. Scan activity was highest in Hong Kong (55 per cent of total scans) and China (26 per cent).

Doubling down: protecting supplier certificates, not just products

As a further show of its commitment to its supply chain partners, Reid Fruits now supplies its licensed distributors with a certificate of authenticity featuring a Laava Smart Fingerprint.

The certificates are provided to wholesalers, retailers and related parties, who could scan the unique Laava Smart Fingerprint – dubbed "The Global Mark of Trust™" – to verify the on-sellers' legitimacy. The document integrity measure strengthens brand reputation and authenticity.

"One of the things we know is that customers and consumers are very interested in knowing where they can buy genuine and authentic Reid Fruits premium cherries," Coad said. "The new and secure authorised certificates this season with their own individual Laava Smart Fingerprint enabled our importers and their distributors to verify to customers they were authorised to sell genuine Reid Fruits product."

It starts with brand protection, and ends with trust and engagement

Reid Fruits initially sought out Laava for its innovative counterfeit prevention technology. It's telling to see that Reid then stayed to develop a complete connected packaging solution based on the Laava platform, integrated with sophisticated digital storytelling, marketing and other capabilities from Laava's partner ecosystem.

Both Laava and Reid Fruits have witnessed the results from this partnership: counterfeiters are simply not bothering to risk it with such a well protected brand, and moving onto less well-protected targets.

We can't wait for this coming season, and look forward to sharing the results of the fourth year of partnering with this globally respected brand.

Valuable, connected brands across every sector are choosing Laava

Reid Fruits is far from alone in tapping into the benefits of converting products into secure connected products. Customers all around the world, in every sector – from health and wellness to wines and beverages, consumer and luxury products, premium foods, document and asset integrity, and more – are turning to Laava for its powerful, quick and easy to deploy and cost effective secure connected packaging solutions.

Thinking of deploying a #connectedpackaging solution to protect your premium products? Check out our snapshot of businesses who are doing exactly that!

Learn how #LaavaSmartFingerprints deliver leading consumer experiences for businesses in every sector. https://t.co/l6Bxb974xS pic.twitter.com/DtrIs9Ly26

— Laava® (@laava_id) February 1, 2023

To learn more visit the Laava website or contact the Customer Support team to start a trial.

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Gavin Ger is CEO and Co-Founder of Laava

Gavin Ger is a commercial specialist with a career spanning 25+ years in global management consulting, technology and entrepreneurship. He is passionate about innovation, technology and the power of collaboration. His career includes 12 years with Andersen Consulting (later Accenture) in Sydney and London, developing expertise in major-scale technology and strategy driven change.

Laava® helps brands tell trusted stories and turn their products into connected products, with patented Laava Smart Fingerprint® technology – the world’s first secure and globally scalable alternative to QR codes.