Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s weekly pick of recent product, packaging and design launches:
- Distinctive Black Bottle whisky back in black
- Sea Harvest’s new product fishing expedition
- SA product Snuza impresses US parents, and
- Samsung ‘owns’ the smart home of the future.
Black Bottle ‘back to black’
After a century and 18 months of development, Black Bottle whisky is back with its signature black bottle. The single-malt-and-grain whisky blend has also been updated to honour creator Gordon Graham’s original product, made in 1879 in Aberdeen, Scotland.
The smoky whisky was bottled in the distinctive black bottle from Germany until supplies were disrupted by World War I, forcing a change to green.
Now, a century later, Black Bottle is celebrating its origins with the retro look and blend. The new design has been inspired by a black bottle found in the company archives that dated back to 1906, while the blend has been adjusted to reflect the recipe created in Aberdeen by Graham and his brothers 135 years ago.
“The revised look and blend offer a more authentic version of Black Bottle’s history and was rigorously researched before the recent global introduction to rave reviews. It won the World’s Best Relaunch Award at this year’s World Whisky Design Awards, following its debut in Scotland a few months ago,” reports South African brand spokesperson, Taygan Govinden.
The new Black Bottle is available in SA from this month, retailing for between R240 and R260 per 750ml bottle. If you want to be invited to some of the exclusive launch events, register at www.theblackbar.co.za.
New Sea Harvest catch
Sea Harvest is promoting “fine dining at home” with the launch of its Yellowfin Tuna Steaks, which are Heart-Mark approved, freshly frozen and skinless. Sea Harvest’s ‘Fine Dine’ range also includes: Lightly Smoked Rainbow Trout, Rainbow Trout with Soy Chilli Sauce and Rainbow Trout with Lemon Butter Sauce.
The crumbed Oven Crisp Southern Style fish-fillet portions are available in family-sized 400g packs at most major retailers, including Checkers, Pick n Pay, Shoprite and selected Spar stores.
The new Fish Nuggets are aimed at the kids and each pack contains 30 bite-sized portions.
Lifesaving Snuza
The Snuza Hero and Snuza Go! are portable, cordless devices that clip onto the front of a nappy, with a sensitive and flexible rubber tip that gently rests on Baby’s tum. Both devices detect even the slightest abdominal movements and sound an alarm, should movements be very weak or fall to less than eight ‘rise-and-falls’ per minute.
If no abdominal movement is detected for 15 seconds, the Snuza Hero will vibrate to rouse the baby. If movement still does not resume after five seconds, an alarm sounds as a call for urgent intervention.
The PTPA (Parent Tested, Parent Approved) Winner’s Seal of Approval has been awarded to the Snuza Trio Plus and Snuza Go! These are in addition to the PTPA accolade awarded in April 2014 for the company’s current flagship baby movement monitor, the Snuza Hero.
Greg Gallagher, who developed the technology, comments that the accolades have been immensely valuable in guiding product development: “We deliver approximately 80% of our Snuza devices to the USA, so this feedback from consumers is unbelievably good news for our business.”
Snuza devices are currently distributed in 64 countries, and available in SA through Dis-Chem outlets.
Samsung’s smart home
Samsung is doing its utmost to make the ‘Smart Home’ a reality with more products and services launched this week. The new range is designed to increase home safety, improve energy management, adapt to in-home location and be operated by voice command.
The safety services let users monitor the interior of the home by connecting digital door locks and IP cameras so that they can remotely and securely assess who is entering and exiting their home. The amount of electricity used by energy-intensive appliances is also monitored.
New location-awareness services enable devices in the home to automatically turn on via location-recognition technology, eg lights and the air conditioner will switch on automatically when the user approaches the home.
The final newly announced service creates a more convenient home, as people can activate the air conditioner, robot vacuum cleaner and Smart LED lights anytime, from anywhere, through S Voice, the voice-recognition service embedded in the wearable GEAR series, as well as via GALAXY smartphones. Many detailed voice commands have been preloaded to allow the user to give specific instructions to a range of devices.
Samsung plans to expand the compatibility of its Smart Home offering to products from other device and appliance manufacturers, alongside additional Samsung products, to create a seamless home experience. As part of the ongoing acceleration of the growth of this ecosystem, Samsung will also unveil the Smart Home SDK later this year, which will enable partner companies to develop hardware devices supporting the Samsung Smart Home.
In addition, Samsung recently acquired SmartThings, creator of an open platform for the Smart Home and consumer Internet of Things. Using resources and support from Samsung, the intention is that SmartThings will continue to accelerate the development of a truly open ecosystem for connected homes. Samsung will also open its products to developers and partners on the SmartThings platform to help create experiences for the connected home.
Shelf Life is a weekly column by Louise Marsland 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 19 of her more-than-25-year career as a former editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing, as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. Until its cancellation, she edited the weekly Wednesday Media & Marketing Page for The New Age newspaper. She is currently the publishing editor of industry trendwatching portal, TRENDAFRiCA,for consumer insight, research and trends in Africa.
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