Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week:
- Escape to Mainstay;
- Your chocolates now in ‘3D’ from Lunch Bar;
- Moving Tactics gets the Revlon account in store; and
- Continental Ignites the market.
Don’t stay the way you are
When I was a teenager in the ’80s, Mainstay was considered so cool that there were branded Mainstay T-shirts and shorts everywhere. I even confess to having had a Mainstay beach bag *cough*. And to put it into context for all the Millennials – this was way before it was de rigueur for brands to brand fashion!
And the jingle! ‘You can stay as you are for the rest of your life, or you can change to Mainstay’… As much a part of the fabric of our summer days as the old Peter Stuyvesant ‘beautiful people on holiday’ commercials!
Mainstay has two new releases debuting in time for summer and the holiday season: Mainstay 54 Island Vodka and Mainstay Fusion.
Mainstay 54 Island Vodka is made using a five-column distillation process. Sun-ripened molasses and island fruits are selected. These contain the simplest sugar that allows for a clean conversion to alcohol, allowing no impurities to remain.
And here’s the marketing spiel: “This purity translates onto the palate, where the viscosity and flavour work together in harmony, to enhance the experience as being something out of the ordinary.”
The press release goes on, punting escapism and beautiful people… as it did 30 years ago!
The Mainstay Fusion range has three variants: Mainstay Exotic Fusion — a blend of coconut, coffee and vanilla; Mainstay Tropical Fusion — a blend of mango and other tropical fruits; and Mainstay Island Fusion — a hint of hazelnuts and spices.
I must say that the bottles are that fabulous blue that will make great organic middle-class patio candlestick holders when you’ve drunk the contents!
Chocolates in 3D
Cadbury’s marketing team is clearly working overtime this summer season. It has now launched the Lunch Bar in triplicate. Oh sorry, that’s the Lunch Bar triple choc 3D. What other kind of chocolate is there?
Anyway, the 3D Lunch Bar is a Limited Edition release, “crammed with chocolate wafer biscuit, chocolate-crisped rice, thick Cadbury milk chocolate, plus caramel and peanuts”.
Says Stuart Knott, Mondelez South Africa’s senior brand manager chocolate bars: “While Lunch Bar has a loyal following, adding limited editions to the range is our way of giving fans of SA’s favourite chocolate bar something we’ve always promised — much, much more.”
It’s on shelves from October — while stocks last. Don’t all rush out at once.
Revlon launches digital network
Digital media in store is growing in popularity after a rather rocky start in the last few years. New players are getting it right and pricing it right as the technology improves and becomes more accessible.
Moving Tactics, which develops customised digital signage, is working with Revlon South Africa in rolling out in-store digital signage inside Edgars and Woolworths stores. The aim is to drive brand awareness and sales.
Moving Tactics, which has the sole rights within Africa to real-time visual communications software, X2O Media, will be using this digital-media platform to operate and manage Revlon’s content throughout its network.
The use of in-store digital media in the cosmetics industry is growing worldwide and retailers have seen the benefits of implementing these systems in the retail environment first-hand. Research conducted by FGI (2012) on Edgars’ digital signage system confirm that 41% of shoppers were influenced to purchase something in-store, based purely upon the advertising on in-store digital screens. This increase in purchasing has led to a 70% increase in sales in those stores employing digital signage.
Nikki Fletcher, merchandising manager at Revlon, comments: “Our experience with digital signage proved to us that in-store digital media really works to create and increase brand and product awareness amongst our customers, and we could see a direct correlation between products advertised through this medium and our sales turnover.”
Continental’s new digital billboards
Billboards can never be described as attractive additions to the urban landscape, but Continental’s new digital network is pretty snazzy.
It has launched seven new digital roadside billboards in Sandton as part of its new Ignite network, comprising Daktronics screens with what it describes as “eye-popping” image quality.
Here’s how it works: the screens offer the widest colour palette (144 quadrillion colours), ensuring content creators have the ability to digitally duplicate ad copy reproductions. Increased contrast with zero perceived tiling, minimised lines between modules, blacker blacks, richer colours, and bolder images. This technology also encourages energy efficiency.
And this is seriously cool: proof-of-play webcams which have been installed on each screen to provide advertisers with real-time reassurance that their ad is being flighted.
“This brand new network reaches up to 6.7 million people per month (JRA) and offers advertisers tactical messaging, day-part message management and real-time updates. This allows for strategic, location-based multiple impacts throughout the consumer’s day, creating seamless conversations with consumers,” says Lelanie Butler, sales director of Continental Outdoor Media (SA).
Samsung, in fact, became its first client, launching the new Galaxy Note 3.
“The advancement of technology and its ability to personalise and encourage interactive behaviour is redefining outdoor advertising’s role. This reinforces many of out-of-home’s (OOH) inherent strengths, providing new opportunities and further flexibility for brands to converse with consumers,” states Bazil Lauryssen, Continental Outdoor Media CEO.
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. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.
Louise 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 South Africa’s industry trendwatching portal, TREND. at www.trendlives.info, in partnership with MarkLives.com.