Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.

Durex makes a social statement; trusty old Weet-Bix undergoes a youthful makeover; Nike launches a designer collection; and an international design competition for designers with baggage.

Weet-Bix rocks out

Weet-Bix is not a brand usually associated with the youth market in a category cluttered with frenetic cartoon characters, plastic toys and weirdly shaped coloured cereal. It’s usually something granny eats to keep regular.

Well, Machine agency is trying to change all that and sex things up by giving the brand an integrated campaign to appeal to a wider market using music with customised sound tracks and its own “Beat Bix” signature track composed by sound production specialists, Say Thank You.

There’s MTV Music Video Awards tickets to be won, local DJs getting involved and various music related awards, games and dance competitions. Machine has designed a rhythm based game for Facebookand professional hip hop dancers will be helping students get down with the Beat Bix track on campuses.

The onpack promotion is supported by TV, radio, Facebook, shopper stoppers in store and campus activations.

Weet-Bix brand manager Khosi Snondo hopes the campaign will enable the brand to resonate with a younger market. Machine creative director, Gareth McPherson, said the agency shepherded the design right through to the coding. “We activated the game not only online, but also through live campus activations.”

Nike Free inspires

Nike has launched a free designer ‘ebook anthology’ which charts and explores the genesis of the Nike Free technology of this particular designer running shoe. It is an elegant and inspirational journey for fans of the brand and this particular product, with interactive interviews and stories from top athletes, designers and the shoe architects.

Billed as the “Inside Story of Natural Motion”, the Nike Free A-Z, aims to highlight the new Nike Free collection and is available for download in South Africa from this month (April) at: Nikeinc.com.

The idea for Nike Free was born in 2001 and launched a shoe that delivered the benefits of natural motion while protecting the foot.

Through imagery, video, and interviews with innovators and athletes, Nike Free A-Z“sheds light on the design process and illustrates Nike’s constant commitment to serving the athlete. From hot knifing to dynamic Nike Flywire technology, Nike Free A-Z takes you on the journey of how a coach’s insight about natural motion led to a new performance language,” the press release rhapsodises.

Have a look. It’s Free.

Do you have baggage?

Samsonite has launched a global competition for student designers to create artwork for the stylish Samsonite Curv collection of suitcases. It’s open to registered undergraduate and graduate art and design students or those who complete their art or design education during the 2012 – 2013 academic year.

Students from South Africa, Russia, Turkey and every European country are invited to take part in the ‘Design My Samsonite’ competition. Two designs will be selected internationally – one for the Cosmolite collection and one for the Firelite collection and the grand prize winners will see their designs produced on the luggage and will be awarded a set of luggage with their design, as well as a trip to either New York or Cape Town.

There will also be a winner awarded for each country and finally, a People’s Choice winner.

Winners will be announced in June and the artwork submissions are being featured on the competition website.

Samsonite has also apparently developed a revolutionary printing technique which enables bespoke designs to be embedded within the Curv material.

Say it safely with a sock

Durex’s sock activation on university campuses in Johannesburg and Stellenbosch is getting a lot of airtime right now and the agency behind it is Rogue brand agency, whose CEO, Brad Dessington, says they wanted to make a social statement.

Dessington told MarkLives that the core message wasn’t just safe sex, but also a social statement to give the youth another way to express themselves – in reality, rather than just by sending a clever tweet or making a Facebook post.

Rogue handed out 10 000 socks with Durex tags at the University of Johannesburg and Stellenbosch in the past few weeks. What made Dessington’s heart skip a beat was when students pulled their shoes off and put the socks on straight-away. Clearly not a hard sell.

He adds that whether they actually use the socks to put on their doorknobs at res to indicate privacy or play, is not the point.

“The idea of the socks is to make Durex a sexy social brand, make a fashion and social statement. This generation are looking for ways to cut through the clutter toexpress themselves. We have taken a social statement into the real world. It is not about the fact that they are having sex or not. We left it open-ended enough for interpretation. It is quite a brazen way to communicate – and leave it up to people to make assumptions.”

And no, Durex has no plan to hit a runway near you with a full fashion line.

– Shelf Life by Louise Marsland is a weekly column on MarkLives. Tweet new product, packaging and design launches to @louise_marsland or email her at louise.marsland at gmail.com.

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Louise Marsland has written about the FMCG, media, marketing and advertising industry for 18 years of her 25 year media career as a former Editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing; as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. She currently edits the weekly Wednesday Media & Marketing Page for The New Age newspaper; and is the co-founder and Publishing Editor of SA’s newly launched industry trendwatching portal, TREND. at www.trendlives.info, in partnership with MarkLives.com.

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