Cheryl Hunter (shelflife at marklives.com)’s weekly pick of all things new — product, packaging, design, insight, food, décor and more!
- Eat Naked, not nonsense
- Kagiso Media’s First Person podcasts launch
- Gumtree gets its own #DreamRide with the help of Ogilvy PR Cape Town
Naked and natural
The health-food aisles are filled with products that have a wholesome, generic ‘farmstall’ look and feel, so when Cape-based agency Utopia was approached to launch a business for environmentally-friendly beekeeping businesses in impoverished communities, it decided to show that healthy doesn’t equal bland. Utopia strategist, James Hamlyn, gave Shelf Life the details.
Shelf Life: Where did the Eat Naked idea originate?
James Hamlyn: Originally, we were approached by African Honey Bee (AHB), a local network of family-run micro-beekeeping businesses. AHB produces superior-in-quality raw honey in harmony with the environment, while providing impoverished communities the tools and knowledge to become beekeepers. Revite came on board as a commercial partner to bring AHB honey to market through its relationship with Dis-Chem.
SL: What was the strategy?
JH: We were required to develop an engaging brand for a range of health foods (launching with AHB honey), from name generation [to] packaging design and everything in between.
Steering away from overtraded terms such as “pure” and “natural”, we conceptualised the brand name “Eat Naked” to express the brand’s focus on raw, unadulterated foods that are free from sugar, preservatives — and nonsense. Eat Naked represents the brand’s straight-up goodness, a call to action to eat consciously.
SL: Who is the target market?
JH: The brand is aimed at the growing health-conscious consumer [market] and was meant to be a more ‘relatable’ take on the many serious but sterile, and sometimes pretentious, health foods brands currently in the market.
People are unaware that cheap honey is often imported and of poor quality.
SL: The packaging design has very specific elements — unpack them for us.
JH: The caveman, dubbed Ug, represents raw and unadulterated foods from a time when additives and preservatives didn’t exist, and is a great visual representation of the brand name Eat Naked.
The design utilises a flat, vector-illustration style unique to the category, and uses a natural colour palette inspired by the ingredients themselves.
The product is packaged in easy-to-use recyclable plastic tubes, which have a lighter footprint than glass. A matte-finish on the tube packaging adds a luxe feel that represents the superior quality of the products, while the quirky tongue-in-cheek tone brings to life the playful brand personality.
SL: Where to for this brand — is it available nationally?
JH: Eat Naked is available exclusively from Dis-Chem stores across South Africa. We have already extended the range to include honey-infused peanut and macadamia nut butters and Snappy Snack sachets.
Eat Naked is currently investing in more hives and helping grow the network of AHB beekeepers to meet the demand for its raw, unadulterated honey. In future, Eat Naked plans to expand to other retailers and introduce new, exciting products to its family.
www.eatnaked.co.za • Facebook • Twitter | www.utopia.agency • Facebook • Twitter
Talking content
First Person is a new podcast commissioned by Kagiso Media and presented by Marianne Thamm about ordinary people with hidden, yet extraordinary stories, and which aims to provide South African audiences with a new kind of local content.
Says Thamm, “I have always been fascinated by the idea that we are around people all the time, in everyday situations, but we have no idea what their lives are really like. Nearly everyone has something extraordinary about them, a story that would make you think ‘I’d never had known that just to look at them’. We’ve uncovered some of those stories.”
These include the 71-year-old granny who’s on a mission to convert the world to the benefits of magic mushrooms; the married middle-class woman who discovered BDSM at the age of 40 and the pigeon-obsessive man who knows that his birds are coming between him and his wife — all upcoming First Person subjects.
Most smartphones are equipped with ‘podcatching’ apps, which mean that, if you subscribe to a podcast, the latest episode is automatically downloaded to your phone and you can listen whenever and wherever you like.
To listen to the latest interview free, Season one: Episode 1 —Thomas Mollett, who has devoted his life to solving two of SA’s highest profile murder cases, go to the website.
www.firstpersonpod.com • Facebook • Twitter
#DreamRide drives views
When Gumtree decided to create and launch a separate social media presence for its virtual automotive showroom, the company opted to use a nine-part online comedy video series showcasing ordinary South Africans’ unique relationships with their cars.
Ogilvy PR Cape Town created the #DreamRide competition, which was promoted through eight x 30” pieces of video content. Each episode shows an amusingly extreme individual achieving their dream ride.
In Themba’s case, his radical love of soft serve leads him to purchase an ice-cream truck, while Jaco’s hectic head-banging response to rock n’ roll gets him some serious air bags in his new vehicle.
Within three weeks of going live, Gumtree Auto had gained over 3m views for the campaign.
Claire Cobbledick, Gumtree head of marketing, says, “Gumtree is a fun brand and we believe in earning views by genuinely entertaining our audience with Vine-sized clips. Even the staff couldn’t wait to see which car and ad would be uploaded next. Virality can’t be bought and this is a good demonstration of how an agency can generate buzz by creating content individuals actually want to view.”
www.gumtree.com/cars • Facebook • Twitter
Shelf Life is MarkLives.com’s weekly column covering all things new. Notify us of yours at shelflife at marklives dot com. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.
Cheryl Hunter (@cherylhunter) has written for the South African media, marketing and advertising industries for more than 15 years. A former editor of M&M in Independent Newspapers and contributor to Bizcommunity, AdFocus, AdReview and the Ad Annual, she has also produced for various television networks and currently consults on communication strategy and media liaison.
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