Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s weekly pick of recent product, packaging, design and food launches:
- Punk & Ivy makes typography LEGiT
- more hotels and more upgrades for Protea, and
- Moving Tactics launches retail analytics
Punking fashion
The Punk & Ivy for LEGiT clothing brand has brought a typographer and illustrator on board for a new poster campaign for winter. The campaign statement is: “Don’t conform”. LEGiT has over 200 stores across South Africa, in the SADC region and Zambia.
Typographer Dani Loureiro and illustrator Jade Klara provide the background to an imaginative shoot for Punk & Ivy’s new winter capsule wardrobe, capturing the fashion brand’s “progressive spirit”.
The artistic treatment is also aimed at showcasing the progression of the brand and reaching out to fashionable consumers who think the same way: being “visually arresting”, unconventional and making a statement about wearing what they want.
Digital marketing specialist Bianca Sibiya and brand stylist Khaya Sibiya founded Punk & Ivy for LEGiT as “uniquely African-inspired sports luxe and streetwear”. Key items in this new collection include the tux jumpsuit, embellished bodycon dress, boiler suit, white shirtdress and gold maxi skirt.
According to LEGiT marketing manager, Ocean Ngobeni, it plans to expand further into Africa, with focusing upon popular culture a core strategy. “We are all about executing true fast fashion. The Punk & Ivy range is exactly in line with our objectives, and with Dani and Jade on board to bring our positioning to life, we’re going to continue to be part of, and lead the way in, local popular culture.”
Further Protea Hotels upgrades
Since being acquired by Marriott International in 2014, the Protea Hotel group has been on a massive expansion and upgrade drive, refurbishing key properties and expanding its footprint into other regional centres in South Africa.
The latest acquisitions are the Malaga Hotel in Mpumalanga and Hunters Rest Hotel in the Magalies Mountains in Rustenburg. The latest properties to undergo refurbishment are Stellenbosch and Mossel Bay.
Malaga has received an updated look inside and out, including the spa and conference venue for up to 200. Rustenburg Protea has had R15 million spent on it to upgrade all the public areas and the owners have a lot more planned for the property’s refurbishment. There is a chapel and an open-air boma for functions.
Stellenbosch Protea has new furniture, art, soft furnishings, wooden floors and wall colours to enhance the hotel’s beautiful and historical surroundings. Mossel Bay has recently remodelled eight rooms and upgraded them from family rooms to deluxe rooms, bringing the look and feel in line with modern trends in finishings. The furnishings feature intricate woodwork and all furniture was sourced and produced locally in nearby George.
Retail analytics
Moving Tactics has launched a Retail Analytics division, aimed helping retailers to improve in-store customer experience. According to the digital signage company, retail analytics technology is in its infancy in South Africa but, in the US and Europe, it is used extensively to encourage a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour and, in so doing, optimise the retail industry’s performance.
The new division will focus on the gathering of data from brick-and-mortar retail environments through the use of a variety of technological and digital analytical tools, in order to determine patterns and trends.
According to Chris Day, Moving Tactics MD, internationally, where retail analytics technology is already implemented in a number of environments, their main industry priorities have been perfecting the technology while finding the balance between the gathering of valuable and usable data, and consumer privacy.
“By leveraging analytics tools and models, retailers can boost customer loyalty by creating a personalised shopping experience that matches an offer to a customer’s need. However, customer privacy is important to us so the tools that are used don’t gather information or details on individual customers and therefore they are compliant with consumer privacy laws in South Africa”, adds Scott Matthews, new business developer at Moving Tactics Retail Analytics.
In addition, through the use of retail analytics tool, retailers should be able to increase store efficiencies, introduce in-store added-value initiatives, and provide consistent and reliable service.
Shelf Life is a weekly column by Louise Marsland. 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 over 20 years as a former editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing, as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. She also 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; a regular industry columnist and speaker; a consultant on content strategy; and contributing editor to Fast Company South Africa magazine, which has just launched in South Africa.
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