Exclusives

Digimarc CEO Eyes Huge ‘Addressable Market’

There is a huge “addressable market” for the Digimarc Discover platform, company CEO Bruce Davis told the Needham Emerging Technology Conference in New York May 19. He pointed to a recent GS1 estimate that there are 600 million to 800 million global trade identification numbers used to identify packaged goods in circulation worldwide. GS1 is the trade association responsible for the management of barcode standards globally.

The Digimarc Discover platform, including its Digimarc Barcode, “can save billions of dollars” for the retail industry and “enable enhanced consumer engagement” for brands, among many other applications, he said. Digimarc’s market development strategy is focused on the world’s largest retailers and brands, he said.

The platform’s rollout among retailers and brands is underway and Digimarc sees “many potential inflection points” in the business, he said. Wegmans was the first retailer customer and has deployed Digimarc’s platform inside stores and on the supermarket chain’s mobile app, he said.

“We do everything that the barcode does better,” including speed (without misreads) and prevention of fraud, he said. The company also has a “far larger” addressable market than the traditional barcode market, which is print-based, he said, pointing out that the Digimarc platform can be applied to audio in addition to images. Its platform is also invisible and inaudible, so it doesn’t take up any additional space in the media it’s used in, he said.

The barcode can be used to automatically identify and interact with virtually any media, he said. Digimarc charges a licensing fee of $50 per SKU for packaging design and also offers an enterprise license that is based on the total use of the platform by a customer, including packaging, in the case of retailers and consumer brands, he said. The company also licenses a software development kit to smartphone application providers and it typically charges 2 cents per download for smartphones, he said.

Rovio incorporated Digimarc Barcode for audio into the end credits of “The Angry Birds Movie” that opened theatrically in the U.S. May 20. The technology allows for a unique way to activate new capabilities via audio, Digimarc said in a news release May 18. When audience members take out their smartphones and open the “Angry Birds Action!” game app during the end credits, the app seamlessly identifies the enabled audio and the moviegoer is immediately granted access to a new area of the game along with an exclusive movie clip, the company said.

The smartphone was a “critical” element in the development of Digimarc’s strategy because the device represents its primary user interface (UI), Davis told attendees at the conference. Its application can be used to identify not only the Digimarc Barcode, but conventional barcodes and QR codes also, he said. The UI is compatible with Android and iOS devices. Digimarc’s largest application customer is a consortium of central banks because its top market is government security, he said, saying at the conference that Digimarc has been working with that customer for nearly 20 years, with another decade left on their contract. Digimarc’s technology is used by that customer to deter against counterfeiting, he said.

In addition to the main Digimarc web site, it has a companion online presence that will launch June 1 with GS1 and enable the trade association’s members to license Digimarc Barcode directly from GS1, he said.