Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s pick of new product, packaging and design launches this week:
- Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies launch in SA;
- DStv takes to the malls to demo Explora;
- Perdeberg Winery launches its wines in a new collection; and
- here’s how you can contribute to Checkers and Shoprite’s campaign to provide festive cheer to needy kids.
Tea and a biscuit, anyone?
Royal Dansk, the “original authentic Danish butter biscuit”, has launched in South Africa* —just in time for the festive holiday season — and the famous blue tins are already decorating supermarket shelves in the Christmas-special aisles.
The biscuits contain no preservatives, are made from all natural ingredients and the same recipe developed in 1966 in Denmark is still being used.
The other indulgent cookies in the Royal Dansk range are also now on South African shelves. These include: Chocolate Chip, Oat & Cranberry and Luxury Wafers.
Royal Dansk is launching with ‘cookie companion’ and ‘cookie encounters’ campaigns, as well as competitions and reader offers in a variety of publications.
Keep up with the specials via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Explore DStv
DStv has been busy with a variety of campaigns to launch its new Explora PVR decoder to viewers. In a shopping mall activation with Primedia Unlimited’s Mall Active, it used futuristic “Explora pods” for consumers to interact directly with the product.
The message was ‘the best TV just got better’ and activations targeted at LSM 8-10 took place at Sandton City, Gateway in Durban, Brooklyn Mall in Pretoria and Cape Town’s Canal Walk malls.
Tablet stands ran the application, providing information and details about DStv packages, and a ‘crack-the-code’ game further enticed consumers to take part as four decoders were given away — one at each mall.
“Weekends saw the addition of our sister company, TLC, getting celebrities to connect with consumers when they were at their happiest and most relaxed with its GlamCam product, which is a camera kiosk that enables consumers to capture an image of themselves. This provided DStv’s consumers with a real-time, socially integrated experience,” said Mall Active’s Travis Brown.
Dry Land Collection
Perdeberg Winery, located in the fertile Agter Paarl area between Malmesbury and Durbanville in the Western Cape, has launched its best wines in a new premium wine range, entitled the Dry Land Collection.What distinguishes Perdeberg’s wines is that 70% of the vineyards rely almost entirely on rainfall — ie, they are not irrigated. In fact, 70% of the vineyards rely almost entirely on rainfall.
Perdeberg’s vineyards span four different micro-climates and the weather affects the soil, drainage and altitude from one vineyard to another.
The Perdeberg Dry Land Collection range is available only in the on-trade and ex-cellar.
Benefiting from nature, the Dry Land Collection wines rely upon a combination of rainfall and cool sea breezes from both the Indian and Atlantic oceans, which act as “an effective antidote to the scorching sun”, keeping the ripening grapes at the optimal temperature required to produce great wines.
I enjoyed the wine press releases and bouquet descriptions; they manage to transport the reader to the actual vineyards or cellars.
Toy run
Another Christmas retail story, but this is one where everyone can contribute: Checkers and Shoprite are bringing festive cheer to underprivileged kids in SA by donating toys to the annual Toy for Toy campaign, along with The Nataniël Progress Project and BADISA.
Shoppers in store are urged to donate new or used toys to needy children — matched toy for toy by Checkers and Shoprite.
What’s more, Shoprite is driving an online initiative in which the more the hashtag #ExtraSpecial is used on Twitter , the more donations the retailer will make directly to the Toy for Toy initiative. Then watch the Shoprite Toy for Toy Christmas tree light up on www.shoprite.co.za/christmas/Pages/extraspecial.aspx.
More than 8 500 toys were distributed to needy children last Christmas, and a total of 137 000 toys have been collected so far.
Toy for Toy trolleys can be found outside every store until 6 December 2013.
*Update 25 November 2013: Royal Dansk is now widely available all year, where previously the availability was limited to special imports during the festive season.
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.