For as long as food brands have existed, there have been promotional tie-ins on food packaging — coupons on the label or box, mail-in offers, and instant-winner sweepstakes. Now, with the growing significance of electronic media, packaging is being integrated with mobile technology to drive sales.

Consumer Product Goods (CPG) manufacturers are beginning to incorporate mobile messaging right into their packaging graphics and print advertisements to engage consumers. With Short Message Service (SMS) or 2D Code messages, consumers can personally interact with the brand and be guided to specific campaign drivers, such as coupons (which can be printed out or attached right to their loyalty rewards program at the retailer), sweepstakes, recipes, or nutritional information.

There are a couple of reasons that incorporating mobile messaging into packages makes sense. First, mobile phones dominate communication technology in today's market. According to data from the CTIA center, 86% of adults in the U.S. own a cell phone—and these phones are getting smarter all the time. As of May 2010, there were 265 million mobile phone users, 240-plus million text-enabled handsets, and 49 million smartphones in the market. More than 90% of us keep our cell phones within arm's reach 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. More than 70% of us actually take our cell phones to bed with us and use them as alarm clocks. A study by Unisys revealed that if we lose our wallet, we report it missing in 26 hours. If we lose our cell phone, we report it missing in 68 minutes.