Counterfeiting today is a multi billion-dollar business. It’s more than bogus passports and imitation handbags – it can affect anything and everything, from your headphones, to your morning medication, to your identity.
No consumer is safe, no brand is untouchable, and no organization is out of reach.
Today’s counterfeits don’t operate from backrooms and sell their wares in dark alleyways – they run huge-scale operations boasting advanced technology facilities, hot on the heels of the latest security innovations.
They sell falsified products on global ecommerce platforms and well-known social media streams. In fact, counterfeit and pirated goods now account for 3.3% of all global trade.1
And, as ecommerce continues to grow exponentially, consumers are becoming easier targets for counterfeiters. Brand owners need to be able to fight the fakes, while proving the authenticity and legitimacy of their products.
In the wake of COVID-19, this has become more urgent and acute than ever. As demand for essential products increased and more consumers turned to internet shopping, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and medical devices boomed. A recent study found that counterfeit pharmaceuticals traded worldwide has reached EUR 4.03 billion.2
With each successful security breach, counterfeiters are only getting better and bolder. How can you get ahead of the threat, without continuously reinventing your security offering?
A sophisticated problem requires a sophisticated solution.
In this ebook, you will learn about how HP Indigo Secure makes it possible to stay ahead of counterfeiters with a never-before-seen adaptive security shield that provides multi-layer digital armor on just one press – in just one pass.
It is important to remember that you are not fighting this battle alone. Brands and organizations are now starting to address security issues in public.
Global ecommerce giants such as Amazon have made public commitments to bringing counterfeit down to zero, with the establishment of Counterfeit Crimes Units. In 2021, Amazon invested more than $900 million and 12,000 people – including machine learning scientists, software developers, and expert investigators – into developing tools for protecting customers, brands, and selling partners, from counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse. As a result of these efforts, Amazon succeeded in stopping more than 2.5 million bad actors from creating fraudulent selling accounts, thereby preventing them from publishing a single product for sale.3
This emerging trend is driving change in the security printing and brand protection industry
Even so, the estimated impact of brand counterfeiting is expected to reach $4.2 trillion, globally, in the next few years.4 The stakes are high and with so much on the line – customer safety, corporate financial losses, intellectual property violations, brand reputations, the global economy – your customers need assurances that your security solution will work.
Remember
You don’t necessarily need a solution that can continuously outrun every attacker – the industry is working hard and collaboratively to win this war. As a print solution provider, you can play an important role in helping fight counterfeiting by offering your customers the latest security solutions available in the market, designed to ensure that they avoid becoming the likely target of such attacks. HP Indigo Secure makes it possible to stay ahead of counterfeiters with a never-before-seen adaptive security shield that provides multi-layer digital armor on just one press, in just one pass.
Different features for different purposes
The print security market is split into two segments that are differentiated by target customers and characteristics, needs and challenges: security printing and brand protection. The global market for security printing and brand protection is currently forecast to grow from $29.5 billion in 2019 to $36 billion by 2024.5
Security printing
Security printing targets governments, authorities, finance, and other institutions that deal with documents such as currency, identification, tax stamps, and other secure documents. With the rise of the digital landscape and the wider use of e-payments, this segment is having to adjust to new market realities.6
Brand protection
Brand protection targets brands that are increasingly forced to confront counterfeiting issues, particularly in the nutraceuticals and wellness, cosmetics and personal care, spirits, agrochemical, industrial and automotive, and food and beverage industries. For this segment, increasing diversion problems, multiple SKUs, concerns around health and safety, and E2E workflow integration remain the key challenges.
Tailor-made solutions
HP Indigo Secure is a set of solutions (hardware, software, ElectroInks, and substrates) for brand protection and security printing, based on HP Indigo LEP technology and empowered by industry-leading partners. These solutions apply multiple layers of overt, semi-covert, covert, and forensic security elements, to any document, label, or package in one pass with the power of variable data and serialization.
Combining security levels
As counterfeiters become more sophisticated and respond more rapidly to the latest security printing technology available, your security solution needs to offer a higher level of sophistication and complexity.
Whether you are a security print provider or a brand protection converter, HP Indigo Secure can support your security strategy through tailor-made security solutions.
Level 1
Overt
Visible security features that allow individuals to inspect packaging without specialized tools, such as holograms and color-shift ink.
Level 2
Semi-covert
A visible security feature that needs an additional device to authenticate it, such as a QR code or microtext.
Level 3
Covert
High-security features embedded into labels, product packaging, and documents that are invisible to the human eye, such as taggants and invisible inks that require purpose-built authenticators or inspectors for identification.
Level 4
Forensic
The highest level of protection, security features that are detectable only in a laboratory, with their exact nature held secret for security reasons. These are authenticated by an authentication inspector.
How can you respond to this with HP Indigo?
Using multiple serialization tools – a combination of overt, semi-covert, covert, and forensic measures – HP Indigo Secure provides additional preventative layers that make it easier to catch counterfeiters.
Unlike conventional security solutions, HP Indigo Secure allows you to apply multiple layers of security elements in different security levels to any document, label, or package in one pass, with the power of variable data and serialization.
Combining security features
Innovative plug and play components
Our longstanding alliances with trusted and credentialed global leaders will give you and your customers the ability to mix and match a wide range of advanced innovative plug and play elements that are easy to print and hard to copy.
HP Microtext
A unique font designed for HP Indigo presses that allows the printing of text and numbers which appear as a thin line to the naked eye.
Micro 2D barcodes
Four times smaller than standard barcodes – micro 2D barcodes are almost unnoticeable and can encode data for verification and traceability
Guilloche
High-resolution complex patterns made of thin, colorful curved lines that interlace to create a unique design that is virtually impossible to recreate.
HP Indigo Secure allows you to mix-and-match these plugins in one pass, with one print.
SmartStream Designer Marks
Combining security features
Cutting-edge security inks
Our security inks, when combined with the power of HP Indigo’s digital capabilities, add an effective security measure that can protect the entire product supply chain and verify product authenticity
GoSure taggant ink
Developed in collaboration between HP Indigo and Bsecure, the GoSure solution is a highly secure, covert taggant ink formulated exclusively for HP. Users can authenticate a product using the GoSure handheld reader which provides audio and visual verification.
VerifyMe RainbowSecure™ IR ink
Click here to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
HP Indigo ElectroInk Invisible Yellow and Blue
These two transparent inks are visible only under a UV light glowing yellow and blue respectively, using a black light lamp or LED. Delivering high permanence, these inks are suitable for brand protection applications, allowing you to offer invisible text, codes, and shapes.
HP Indigo ElectroInk Invisible Yellow and Blue
These two transparent inks are visible only under a UV light glowing yellow and blue respectively, using a black light lamp or LED. Delivering high permanence, these inks are suitable for brand protection applications, allowing you to
Combining brand protection features
Track and trace and authentication solutions
Highly secure product markings for brand protection and traceability – like digital watermarks, and copy protected barcodes – are hard to imitate, remove, and copy but easy to implement. By combining protected track and trace features with additional security elements, it is impossible to remove, retrace, or tamper with the products throughout the complete supply chain.
Proof barcodes
SCRIBOS has been producing security features for more than 20 years, protecting worldwide operating brands. ValiGate® is a non-cloneable security structure that can be printed directly onto the packaging or on a self-adhesive– hidden or as a barcode. The unique codes allow us to identify fakes, detect grey markets, and open avenues for customer interaction. Printed security features are ideal for mass markets and can be easily authenticated via a smartphone – without an app, so that all target groups can check, participate, and profit.
Unique tracking data
With ScanTrust, customers are able to create unique serialization for products, allowing any anomalies or issues to be traced back to individual products. Each scan of the product’s code builds more data, creating a useful profile of the product and it’s journey, allowing for customized tasks and detailed tracking.
GPAS with Micro Focus
GPAS allows customers to verify whether a product is real, counterfeit, or a recall using their smartphone to scan a product’s QR code. This secure and scalable tool also provides business intelligence reporting alerts that can unlock hidden patterns, providing a real-time product and brand monitoring solution.
Digimarc
Digimarc Corporation delivers transformative product digitization and automatic identification solutions featuring digital watermarks and other unique identifiers combined with product intelligence in the cloud. Digimarc activates products, other physical objects, and digital media for greater accuracy, efficiency, security, and recyclability. Companies benefit from deeper business insights, better brand integrity, and end-to-end supply chain traceability for total transparency.
Locked in layers
With HP Indigo, you can create a multi-layer, multi-purpose security solution – on one press, in one pass. Our technology enables you to cut out multiple production lines, duplicated waste, and unnecessary labor hours to create an adaptive shield using one asset, in one production step, all from one provider. With the power of HP Indigo’s digital capabilities, you can combine variable data, serialization, and multi-layer security features to create a digital armor that protects product authenticity – every step of the way
Next steps for a secure future
Next steps for a secure future
Security printers and brand protection converters play an integral role in keeping customers safe. By 2022, the global market for brand protection investments in print technologies is predicted to grow by $3.6 billion. This is a fast-moving environment and, in the race to reinvent security offerings, many businesses are constrained by insufficient security and brand protection solutions. This is where HP Indigo can help
HP Indigo Secure acts as your single trusted technology provider for brand protection and security printing.
With our security solutions, you can create a digital armor which is unlike anything counterfeiters have ever experienced. Combining multiple security levels and security features including plug and play, security inks, and track and trace, you can create an adaptive security shield that outmanoeuvres their every move. As the world’s leading digital printing company, we can provide the technologies, techniques, and elements which, when combined, create a virtually limitless combination of security solutions. And, you’ll have the full force of a global alliance of industry leaders behind you – every step of the way. Our holistic solution is a tool for protection and also a gateway for adding value to brands in terms of consumer engagement, supply chain track and trace, sustainability, business intelligence, and more. The time has come for brands to adopt smart packaging!