Shelf Life: Do the right things

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

A warm and fuzzy welcome for new employees at Prezence Digital; Joe Public smells the coffee; Baileys goes 3D in Africa; and Nike gets the boot.

Welcome to Prezence         

New employees at Prezence Digital are certainly not put into a box or labelled as such. Instead, they are made to feel as welcome as possible with a specially designed ‘Welcome Pack’ at their desks on their first day in the office.

The Welcome Pack is a thoughtful, designer box containing an elegant wood-effect pen, notebook and cup flask set, as well as a cuddly microwaveable ‘huggy bear’ to keep you warm at your desk!

The pack also includes a memory stick with all you need to know about Prezence, from sick days to parking, perks, the Prezence cafe and people, roles and processes.

Prezence CEO, Prakash Patel, says the objective is to make new employees feel welcome and to “drive and entrench, in a creative way, our Primedia values from day one”.

“We want to make new employees feel that not only have they joined a company that cares, but a company that makes you feel at home and welcomed from the moment you are shown your desk. We all know that empty first day nervous feeling sitting at an empty desk. What better than to have a present waiting just for you!” Patel says it is their “very own random act of kindness”.

It is also about walking the talk, as they do talk about people as their greatest assets and want to ensure that they do feel that way. “For me it was about going that extra length as any new employees are our future,” Patel adds.

It’s a yawn with Joe Public

‘Smile and the world smiles with you’; yawn and… you get a cup of coffee!

We have all experienced that bleary-eyed early morning at the airport catching an early flight we wish was a little later, yawning away, stumbling in search of the nearest coffee and a chocolate chip muffin (well, that’s me anyway).

In a meeting of creative excellence and technology, Joe Public have produced an activation for Douwe Egberts coffee that produces a piping hot coffee for tired travellers at ORT – all triggered by a yawn.

Innovative and specially developed face recognition software has been used in the activation to detect the exact moment of the yawn, dispensing a hot cup of coffee. Watch the video here on our Ad of the Week section.

Agency credits go to: art director Freda Raubenheimer; copywriter Jeanine Vermaak; agency producer Debbie Miller; producers London Models; chief creative officer Pepe Marais; software developer Neil Hoy; client service Nina Kohler; and media strategist Jodi Calvert.

Baileys goes 3D

Baileys launched a new bottle into Nigeria and Kenya with women as the target audience.

Aegis Media was tasked with the launch and came up with a creative concept and execution plan within 72 hours. They are proud of the fact that three of their network brands worked as an integrated unit: Posterscope, Isobar and Carat.

As Bruce Burgess of Posterscope SA explains: “If we didn’t win their hearts by being spectacular, brave and true, we risked being ignored.  As women in Nigeria and Kenya become more independent, they are increasingly identifying themselves with aspirational and premium international brands to portray their personality and style. Their exposure to big, premium technology led experiences is somewhat limited, however, their engagement with various social platforms is significant.

The creative team took this insight and did the new Baileys bottle reveal with a larger-than-life 3D building video projection – taking the concept of a big brand billboard, but with a digital twist.

“A bespoke three minute animation was created by Isobar for each market, taking into account consumer preference and the unique shape of each iconic building. These animations were then projected onto the individual buildings using 3D projection technology at launch events in the heart of Lagos and Nairobi,” Burgess elaborated.

They wanted to get across the core brand values of Baileys: warmth, style and spirited elegance and the concept was for Baileys to ‘own’ the night, using 3D video projection technology never before used in Africa and local music artists. The sites chosen were the Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island, Nigeria and the Teleposta Towers, Nairobi, Kenya.

“Launching our new bottle was an opportunity for us to do something that was bold, different and engaging,” said Richard Walker, Baileys marketing manager, Africa.

View the activations in Nigeria

and in Kenya.

Nike gets agile

These boots are made for playing soccer, speed on the field and sexy footballers.

The game is changing. Players want to be fast and sportswear companies like Nike have to take cognisance of the needs of the game.

Nike Football design director Denis Dekovic, began by looking at the attacking forces in today’s game. “The game is changing. It used to be that speed was the focus of the attacking side of the game, but now everybody has pace.”

The Nike Hypervenom is designed to help footballers be quick, agile and flexible in the game.

“Players want to be quicker, not just in a foot race, but quicker with the ball at their feet in small spaces. They want to create chances from nothing.”

The Hypervenom’s upper is created using the new ‘Nikeskin’ system – a soft, supple mesh bound with a thin polyurethane film and finished off with Nike All Conditions Control technology (ACC) to provide the same level of foot-to-ball control in both wet and dry conditions.

Nike worked with some of the world’s top podiatrists too.
– 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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