Your next packaging order may be manufactured in China, shipped through several distributors and opened long after its launch campaign ends. Before approving the artwork, ask a less glamorous question than which video should play: could a new supplier keep that same printed code working?
ONCE’s recommendation is to buy continuity separately from the campaign. A brand should be able to replace the content producer or hosting provider without replacing the address on products already in circulation. A dashboard that lets you swap a video does not, by itself, give you that freedom.
What the 2027 ambition does—and does not—change
GS1’s What is Ambition 2027 in Retail?, updated January 8, 2025, describes an industry goal: retail point-of-sale systems should read and process defined GS1 2D barcodes alongside existing linear barcodes by the end of 2027. Transition timings will vary globally.
That is not evidence that every retailer is ready, nor a universal instruction to remove UPC/EAN symbols on a particular date. Confirm artwork changes with the retailers and barcode specialists involved in your actual distribution. A successful smartphone scan is not a substitute for checkout verification.
For marketing teams, the immediate decision is about ownership before print approval. The product’s identity and the changing content around it need different management arrangements, even when consumers encounter them through one scan.
Choose the smallest architecture you can leave
The GS1-Conformant Resolver Standard, release 1.2.1 ratified in August 2026, separates the identified entity from information about it. Redirection lets the content destination change without reprinting the encoded URI. A simple one-to-one redirect needs no specialist software; a conformant resolver adds machine-discoverable access to multiple related resources. Not every implementation needs that full service.
A single product support page can therefore start small. The important procurement distinction is between three things that vendors may sell in one package:
| What is being bought | What the brand should retain | What can be outsourced |
|---|---|---|
| The persistent printed address | Domain registration, renewal responsibility and DNS authority | Technical administration |
| Routing from address to information | Complete paths, destination mappings and a usable migration export | Redirect or resolver operations |
| The page and its videos | Transferable files, captions, page materials and appropriate usage rights | Production and hosting |
GS1’s Solution provider 2D readiness, version 1.0.0 from April 2025, prefers the brand’s own domain and expects support for managing links on it. It does not prohibit a provider’s domain. ONCE’s recommendation for long-lived packaging is deliberately stricter: use a domain the brand genuinely controls, not merely a branded-looking address owned by someone else.
Domain ownership is necessary to this approach but not sufficient for a clean exit. The replacement must preserve paths, product mappings, HTTPS and usable destinations. A DNS change cannot reconstruct missing records or give you rights to content you never licensed.
The ONCE packaging exit test
This is our proposed acceptance exercise, not a GS1 certification process or a claimed customer result. Run it on one SKU in a controlled test environment before approving production artwork.
First, have the brand administrator inspect the address actually encoded in the printed proof. Confirm who controls registration and DNS. Access to a vendor’s content editor answers a different question.
Second, keep that proof unchanged while switching between two approved test videos. Scan again and check the model, language and working page—not simply whether a browser opens.
Third, export the mapping and required page materials. Recreate the same path on a second test host and switch the test destination. Record the approvals, files, support and interruption involved. Have technical staff perform this rehearsal; do not experiment on codes attached to products already being sold.
Finally, make the video player unavailable in the test environment. Can a customer still identify the product, find written guidance and reach support? Provide an explicit language choice where necessary rather than silently sending users to an unsuitable market page.
A failed step points to a specific purchase requirement: access handover, usable exports, migration assistance or a basic fallback page. It need not force a wholesale creative restart.
Buy support for the product’s circulation, not the campaign’s calendar
Consider a hypothetical homeware launch. The campaign finishes while units remain in distribution and in customers’ homes. Replacing the entire destination with an advertisement for the successor product may be easy, but it leaves existing owners without the explanation they expected.
Our content recommendation is to keep product identification and useful guidance as the default, with campaigns as optional destinations. Video should explain an action well; it should not be the only route to essential information or be assumed to replace applicable instructions. A QR destination alone also does not establish Digital Product Passport compliance.
Ask suppliers to separate initial production from continuing operations. The first budget covers the page, film and configuration. The second covers hosting, availability checks, updates, mapping backups and exit assistance. A “free forever” code is not an answer to who will do those jobs.
A useful planning horizon is the expected circulation date of the final batch plus the period for which the brand commits to content support. This is a budgeting heuristic, not a legal retention period; revisit it as inventory changes. If funds are limited, reduce the number of maintained experiences rather than promising endless refreshes.
Nor should the business case treat scans as unique purchasers or video plays as proof of incremental sales. Start the pilot with correct-content availability, misrouting and support requests. Add campaign measurement only when useful, with separate decisions about personal-data collection and permissions.
For a content partner such as ONCE, the potential opportunity is ongoing product-content care with an explicit service term and a usable handover. Recurring fees should purchase continuing work, not the customer’s inability to leave.
Bring one test to the next supplier meeting: show how an unchanged printed proof reaches the right information after the provider is replaced. Once that works, decide how ambitious the creative experience should be.
Sources checked October 14, 2026. The exit test and procurement recommendations are ONCE analysis, not barcode certification or legal advice.
