Two companies, one idea: Pascal Arnold has built a partnership between PIXELS AG and Prixo AG that closes a real gap in the market. Smart giveaways that not only look good, but trigger a measurable digital process. All from a single source.
The Partnership at a Glance
PIXELS AG brings brand, strategy and digital experiences. Prixo AG brings the physical Smart Touchpoint product. Together they deliver a closed funnel: from the first briefing to measurable lead conversion. No agency switching. No information loss at the interface. You make one call and receive strategy, design, product and digital follow-up sequence from a single source.
How Pascal Arnold Identified This Gap
In his day-to-day work with PIXELS AG, Pascal Arnold observed the same problem time and again. Companies spend good money on trade show appearances, on creative work, on promotional materials. And then? Stacks of business cards that disappear into a drawer two weeks later.
According to an analysis by AUMA, the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry, up to 80% of contacts collected at trade shows trigger not a single follow-up action within 90 days. According to HubSpot data, the optimal follow-up window is 24 to 72 hours after initial contact. Traditional business card processes are structurally incapable of meeting this time window.
That was the moment. Not “how can we digitalise promotional materials”, but: “how can we transfer the moment of physical contact directly into a digital process, without disruption, without time loss?” The answer was Prixo AG and the brand smart-giveaway.ch.
What PIXELS AG Brings to the Equation
PIXELS AG is a digital creative agency focused on brand development, web development and content strategy. What that means in practice: when someone taps an NFC-enabled giveaway and lands on a landing page, that page is not a generic form. It is a considered brand moment. Every sentence, every image, every call-to-action has been aligned with the overarching brand strategy.
The NFC Forum, the global standards organisation for NFC technology, states in its annual reports: the decisive lever for NFC adoption in marketing is not the technology. That has been ready for some time. It lies in the quality of the post-tap experience. A poor appearance after a good NFC tap wastes the entire potential.
This is precisely where PIXELS AG is indispensable. Avery Dennison, global market leader for smart labels, has documented in studies: contextualised NFC with the right digital follow-up sequence achieves up to three times higher interaction rates than generic NFC without a concept. The concept is decisive. Concept is exactly what a creative agency delivers.
What Prixo AG and smart-giveaway.ch Bring to the Table
Prixo AG delivers the physical Smart Touchpoint product. NFC pens, smart business cards, NFC wristbands for events, badge solutions for conferences, Smart Packaging. Every product with an integrated NFC tag to NTAG industry standard (NXP Semiconductors). And with something many promotional merchandise suppliers do not offer: tap analytics in real time.
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. Simply put: you hold your smartphone to the product and the stored page opens immediately. No app required. Over 85% of all active smartphones in Europe are NFC-enabled today (GSMA Intelligence). Since the iPhone 7, every Apple device reads NFC tags natively. On Android, this has been standard since version 4.0.
Interactive promotional items with NFC achieve tap rates of 15 to 35% in activated contexts such as trade shows and events. QR codes typically reach 5 to 12% in the same context. The difference: NFC is more seamless. No opening a camera app, no focusing. One tap, done.
The Funnel Explained: A Concrete Example
Imagine a trade show appearance. You hand out NFC pens at your stand. A Prixo product, branded by PIXELS, with the company’s brand story as an attention anchor. The trade show visitor takes the pen. Later, on the way to the next stand or in the evening at the hotel, they tap the pen.
What happens next is decisive. They do not land on a generic homepage. They land on a landing page tailored precisely to this context. Event-specific, brand-consistent, with a clear value offer: a whitepaper, a demo booking, a discount code. They enter their email address. And the exhibitor sees this in real time.
That same evening, an automated follow-up sequence can be triggered. The 24 to 72-hour window that HubSpot identifies as critical for optimal conversion is met. Not through discipline, but through system design.
That is the difference between a digital giveaway and an intelligent giveaway. The NFC giveaway is not the end of customer contact. It is the starting signal.
What This Means for You as a Client
Without this partnership, the process typically looks like this: a creative agency develops the concept. A different service provider builds the landing page. A promotional merchandise supplier delivers the giveaways, without knowledge of the digital strategy. A CRM specialist sets up the follow-up sequence. Four briefings. Four invoices. And at every interface, information is lost.
According to McKinsey, companies that source marketing services from a single provider have 30 to 40% shorter project timelines. And brand consistency is measurably higher. This is no coincidence. It is the direct result of eliminating interface losses.
68% of B2B marketers struggle, according to the Demand Gen Report (2023), to connect physical and digital touchpoints in a coherent funnel. The partnership of PIXELS AG and Prixo AG is the structural answer to this problem. Not as a theory, but as a market-ready offering.
What is already standard in Scandinavia, what Avery Dennison documents in global studies, what the NFC Forum has described as potential for years: Pascal Arnold has operationalised it for the DACH market. With two companies that complement each other strategically, rather than duplicating one another.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the concrete difference between a conventional promotional item and a smart giveaway?
A conventional promotional item ends at the physical handover. A smart giveaway, for example an NFC pen or an NFC business card, is a trigger. A brief tap with a smartphone opens a digital follow-up sequence: a landing page, a form, a booking interface. The physical contact is transferred directly into a measurable digital interaction. That is the core of Phygital Marketing.
Why do PIXELS AG and Prixo AG work together rather than as one company?
Both companies have different core competencies: PIXELS AG excels in brand, strategy and digital creative work. Prixo AG masters the product world of smart giveaways, NFC technology, supply chain and tap analytics. The partnership allows both fields to be covered at the highest level, without compromises in peripheral competencies. For the client, the result is the same: a single point of contact for the entire funnel.
For which industries and situations are interactive promotional items particularly suitable?
Trade shows and events are the most obvious area of application, because physical first contact and time pressure converge there. But real estate marketing, product launches, restaurant loyalty programmes and corporate events also benefit from NFC-based touchpoints. Wherever a physical object is handed over and a digital process should follow, the application is a natural fit.
Is NFC technology complicated for recipients who are unfamiliar with it?
No. Many clients initially think NFC is too complex for their target audience. Experience from the market shows the opposite. Over 85% of all smartphones in Europe are NFC-enabled. The user does not need to install anything or configure anything. They hold the device to the object, and the page opens automatically. The process is simpler than scanning a QR code.
What does entry cost and from what quantity does it make sense?
Smart giveaways are economically viable even in small quantities, especially when the value of a single generated lead is high. A concrete entry point works best with a pilot project for a specific event or trade show. For more on how NFC promotional item costs and ROI compare, we have broken this down separately. PIXELS AG and Prixo AG advise on this jointly, because product costs must always be evaluated in relation to the digital follow-up sequence and the expected lead value.
Want to know whether this combination works for your next event or trade show? Request a consultation and we will look at it together.
