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Design Annotator: Untamed creatives and Braamfontein furniture

by Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal) For our weekly wrap-up, we’ve collected:

The inspiring Untamed Creatives for our Mercedes Benz campaign;
Some up-and-coming talent from the worlds of animation, art and illustration; and
Warren van Rensburg also does a pretty interesting interview for us.

BIG GAME | A short film by students at The Animation School, CT

BIG GAME from Team Big Game on Vimeo. This incredible animated short film was created by just six dedicated students at The Animation School in Cape Town. The project took the team eight sleepless months to complete, from concept to vimeo upload, where it has received tens of thousands of views in 24 hours.

More behind the scenes pics from Big Game.

Nothing Else Comes Close with Nokia Lumia 1020

This Friday, 29 November 2013, is the exhibition we are hosting in collaboration with Nokia. Expect to see amazing work from eight different photographers who have all produced work on the Nokia Lumia 1020 device.

RSVP for access, or simply visit the Nokia Lumia 1020 page.

Featured: Warren van Rensburg

“After finishing my degree in Photography at the Vaal Triangle Technikon, now Vaal University, I moved to Johannesburg, where I am currently based. I have been shooting professionally since 2002 and have shot for a variety of clients, both locally and internationally. Music, fly fishing and people inspire me every day.”

This information was taken from Warren van Rensburg’s website. It reads conventionally, which is why we thought to include it. It is the only conventional thing about this interview and weirdly enough the only thing written by Warren… we think.

Stef Naude, also known as ST[E]AK, answers some questions on behalf of Warren van Rensburg, because… why not?

Untamed Creatives: Mercedes Benz Collaboration

The new Mercedes Benz CLA has been revealed and it is a breathtaking piece of machinery, matching performance and design, all in one incredible package.

10and5 has collaborated with the Mercedes Benz brand to bring you a unique content series of Untamed Creatives — we’ve compiled a list of the creatives pushing the boundaries of their respective fields. We cover:

Untamed Creatives | Lauren Joffe

Making contemporary jewellery that could be better described as sculpture, Lauren Joffe creates her ‘objects’ by playing with form and materials.

Untamed Creatives | Nomili

With a background in the sciences and a firm footing in the creative realm, Michaella Janse van Vuuren of Nomili truly straddles the fascinating divide between art-meets-design. Her intricately delicate 3D printed sculptures embody her hybrid and Untamed approach to creating.

Untamed Creatives | Kate Davies

Cape Town-based photographer Kate Davies learnt her craft by breaking down and building up every camera she could find. Over the last few years, her bold experiments have been in the realm of infrared photography.

Untamed Creatives | Thingking

When contemplating Untamed creativity, unconventional process and invention, designer-maker consultancy Thingking is a natural association.

Untamed Creatives | SOMA Confection

Heather Thompson is the Conceptual Chocolate Artist behind SOMA Confection. We explore her Untamed style, process and philosophy.

See more articles in our Mercedes Benz Untamed Creatives series.

Fresh Meat Graduate Series

This time of the year is madness for everyone, but no-one more so than for young graduates looking for work. Our Fresh Meat series brings you the latest young creatives making a mark in the industry. Snap them up while you can!

View the work from South Africa’s Young Creatives.

ELLE Rising Star Design Award 2013 | Round-up and winner interview

After months of hard work, the eight finalists of the 2013 ELLE Rising Star Design Award, in association with Mr Price, showcased their collections on the runway at the awards show at The Westin in Cape Town last week Thursday, where Nicholas Coutts was announced as the winner.

The idea behind the Rising Star Design Award is to encourage, identify and nurture young South African fashion design talent and to offer new designers valuable experience to succeed in the competitive fashion world.

#FollowYourself | Knights Whisky Authentic campaign goes digital0

Knights Whisky’s ‘Authentic’ campaign went digital on 1 November with an extended version of the 30″ TVC that had aired earlier this year.

Picking up on consumers’ TV-tweeting habits, and capitalising on the rise of the “dual-screen” viewer, a full social media strategy followed soon after with the hashtag #FollowYourself. The result? Soaring online interaction, making a great case study for how channels no longer exist in isolation.

See the full Knights Whisky digital campaign.

Featured: Robyn Mitchell

Robyn Mitchell is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Cape Town, represented by Alexander’s Band.

We know she likes sangria, travelling and doodling — so we chatted to Mitchell to find out more.

Made in Braamfontein: Dokter and Misses

In 2007, industrial designer Adriaan Hugo and graphic designer Katy Taplin combined their skills to form Dokter and Misses. The husband and wife duo design and produce a selection of furniture, lighting and objects.

More studio pictures from Dokter and Misses.

Design Annotator is a regular column on MarkLives featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, which is curated by publisher Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal) who is also a social strategist.

The Sell: How a cupcake can change your shopping habits

by Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) Every three months or so, I use this column as a review of existing shopper work ‘on the ground’ to summarise the current state of the nation. This time, I was reminded how much I love doing this by something as simple as a cupcake painted in blue and white…

Currie Cup final

It was game day, the Currie Cup final, and the Cape was proud, excited and nervous all mixed into one. From as early as 8am, the men were dressed in Western Province shirts and the traffic lights were alive with hawkers selling, well, anything that allowed for a stripe. I, being the non-rugby-fan shopping addict that I am, chose thatmorning to grocery shop.

It is estimated that, at any one time, there are 600+ live activations (promotions, sampling, activations, offers) in most large grocery stores in South Africa and, that Saturday, Checkers Hyper was buzzing. I could barely walk for a sample, prize or tasting heading my way.

Experiential on steroids

From wine tasting (yes, there was a queue, even at 11am!) and new iced teas to ‘fishing for prizes’ for Omo (I won a bucket, thanks Unilever!) and free dog-food mini packs… this was experiential on steroids — if not for all the right reasons, given I sat in ‘trolley traffic’ in nearly every aisle.

Engaging offers and freebies aside, it was the cupcakes that caught my eye. Checkers has a bakery section of note and there were at least two sampling tables set up — new ‘koeksister mini bites’ (we were in the Cape, after all) and seed loaf — but the queue here wasn’t for the freebies.

Nope, it was for the Western Province-painted, blue-and-white adorned cupcakes. An entire table of cakes, averagely painted and decorated in a not-quite-right WP blue, striped and proud. Flying like hot cakes (ahem) into baskets of smiling moms, proud dads and kids to whom the atmosphere had been identified as the perfect pester power moment.

Does both well

A simple reflection of ‘real’ life, that event that day: the local community’s passion point was drawing shoppers, filling baskets and positioning Checkers again as a store that does fresh, gets variety and does both well. Time to change your supermarket based on a simple cupcake design? Perhaps.

Of a two-hour grocery visit, the cupcakes impressed me the most but, needless to say, there were other pieces of communication in-store that, while not as emotive, equally show an understanding for shoppers’ reality that is worth sharing.

My top five

Here are my top five:

Choose Domestos - cleaner toilets, brighter future

1. From an innovation point of view, Rhodes’ new Snap Cap: genius invention in the form of a plastic lid, allowing the brand to stand out with two simple benefits — “New. Fridge Friendly”. A very smart link between shopper mindset and consumer usage. Genius.

2. Robertsons’ new shelf units: highly improved visibility, beautiful brand space and a colour-coded display that forms part of the shelf. Campbell’s Soup did something similar with Walmart in the USA but I am thrilled to see this on SA soil.

The entire category now becomes easy to shop, straight-forward to navigate and quick-quick to view and choose from. Gravity feeds make for perfect grab-and-go, and even the pricing is at eye level and simple to follow by variant. This trend is bound to spread beyond the herbs and spice aisle; watch this space.

3. JIK — in a similar space to Rhodes with its “Free” Dosing Cap — is worthy of mention, not only because it manages to position a message that says “choose us and we’ll give you the lid” but because it turns it into a compelling offer. Multiple messaging aside (stain removal, product of the year, free cap…), this pack stands out on a shelf of ‘sames’ and certainly makes JIK feel like the added-value option.

Creative? No. Well-executed? Not particularly. But a smart shopper-hook? Yes! I might have branded the ‘Dosing Cap’ so that the leave-behind in the home is constantly reminding Mom to choose JIK again but heyho…

4. Domestos: less a smart reflection of usage-understanding and more just a pleasure to see a brand driving emotion in order to create standout. In an aisle of ‘free dosing caps’ and ‘3-for-2 offers’, this positions the premium brand for what it is — premium and standing for more than functional cleaning. The banners catch your eye, the shelf space is segmented clearly and the shopper is jolted, just for a moment, to heart over wallet.

Sadly, there is no explanation as to how buying Domestos helps the SA students, so the comms could be clearer to drive ‘action’ (ie purchase) but, nevertheless, a worthy large visual-led, emotive campaign.

5. My last one for this month is from Wellingtons: similar to Domestos above, this one makes the shortlist because of entertainment value. When shoppers wander the aisles grabbing their usual fare, the introduction of smart copy that causes them to smile makes it worth choosing Wellington’s sauces over the competition. “TheWors Whisperer” and “The Lambshank Redemption” certainly had me chuckling, driving the brand in just the right way.

Again, I would have strengthened the ‘hook’ once having caught the shopper emotionally, driving the shopper ‘action’ and ensuring s/he picks up a pack but, regardless, it is good to see some smart sauces pushing more than the functional “20% extra free” or “new recipe” promotions.

A hard call

So, that’s the top five for this quarter – a hard call from a long shortlist. There are some brilliant pieces of work coming through, if you ignore the barrage of Christmas decorations.

I didn’t mention Cadbury here but it is doing incredible freestanding units and shelf-ready packaging that I may look at next month. Certainly a company to learn from.

In the meantime, based on the popularity of the cupcakes over that weekend and beyond, perhaps it is time for me to consider changing my supermarket, too…

Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) followed her passion and experience in the consumer, retail and shopper space from regional roles in Europe and Asia, to South African shores in 2010. Having led global brands through the line for Procter & Gamble, and two of London and Hong Kong’s top agencies, her background gives her an international perspective to add to her depth of SA understanding. She serves as strategic director and a partner at 34 Group. Mimi contributes the monthly “The Sell” column concerning shopper marketing to MarkLives.

MojoMotherRussia denies “dubious tender” allegation

by Herman Manson (@marklives) MojoMotherRussia MD Thando Dingaan says his agency followed normal tender processes and did nothing wrong after allegations in Business Day of 17 November 2013 named one of the agencies that merged to form MojoMotherRussia as having received a “dubious advertising tender awarded by Africa’s largest pension fund, the Government Employees Pension Fund”.

The newspaper based its story on a “closely guarded forensic report by PwC” and alleges that a tender worth “R531,555 rocketed 40-fold to R20m through a series of “irregular” behind-the-scenes machinations”.

The agency that received the tender was named in the newspaper report as Mother Russia (sic). 76 Mother Russia merged with morrisjones&co early in 2013.

Dingaan says the agency received in payment from the Government Employees Pension Fund roughly R600 000 for work completed plus production costs. The agency is currently taking legal advice to see what more it can do to clear its name.

At the time of the merger, the combined agency employed 35 people and operated in a revenue band of between R45-50 million. The 76 Mother Russia client list included Selati Sugar, the Government Employees Pension Fund, Pernord Ricard, SABC and Rand Refinery, and clients from morrisjones&co included Debonnairs Pizza, Avios, Mugg & Bean and Nestle.

The fund had suspended its principal executive officer, John Oliphant, ahead of a disciplinary inquiry. Business Day links his suspension to the allegations relating to the 76 Mother Russia tender.

Smart Africa TV: Afrinolly’s big MTN deal

by Russell Southwood (@BalancingActAfr) In this interview, Chike Maduegbuna of Afrinolly talks to us about:

his latest deal with MTN to put the Afrinolly platform out in all its territories;
its strategy to widen its distribution; and
the short film competition it is running.

Afrinolly allows app users to watch African movies, trailers and short films produced in African movie markets, most especially Nollywood.

Russell Southwood is the founder of Balancing Act and the web TV channel Smart Monkey TV, and has been an analyst in telecoms, internet and broadcast in Africa for the last 14 years. Smart Monkey TV aims to capture the energy at the crossroads between African culture and technology. MarkLives is syndicating content from Smart Monkey TV on a weekly basis for the column “Smart Africa TV”.

Red & Yellow set for revamp, expansion

by Herman Manson (@marklives) Cape Town ad school Red & Yellow has set in place a firm foundation for growth and renewal in the new year, when a brand refresh — the first in a number of changes for the school — will be revealed.

Integrated thinking

Red & Yellow was acquired by Quirk Education in August 2012, with the objective of the merger being to update the traditional educational curriculum for advertising and marketing graduates and prepare them for a job environment that requires integrated thinking.

In the past, Red & Yellow produced more traditionally skilled agency recruits, while Quirk Education (which operates separately from the agency with which it shares a name; both are part of the same holding group) was known for its digital-marketing-centric, distance-based e-learning programmes.

Red & Yellow has retained its brand and managerial independence, says MD Di Charton, to ensure sufficient distance between itself and what is essentially an agency brand in Quirk. Charton looks after both the Red & Yellow and Quirk Education brands.

Serve the broader industry

The school aims to serve the broader industry and not simply the Cape Town market, and a Johannesburg expansion will occur in either 2015 (dependent upon approval from the Education department). It has also achieved accreditation for its courses through 2017 — a step up from relying on annual accreditation as it has to date. In 2014, accreditation for several new courses and curricula will be applied for, and these should start in 2015.

The knowledge base of Quirk Education has started filtering through to Red & Yellow students and the industry can expect closer integration between the two institutions going forward.

The school is also investigating expanding past Johannesburg and into the rest of the continent. It has a five-year plan in place in which to achieve this goal, which won’t be solely built around distance-based education.

Up-skill marketing staff

In her conversations with marketers, Charton has found that agencies have a particular need for skills relevant not only to digital integration but also to project management, presentation skills and applicable strategic insights.

Charton is also engaging with organisations to encourage them to use Quirk Education’s digital platforms to up-skill marketing staff (and to provide incentives for staff to do so). Distance-learning courses will become much broader than the current digi-centric courses on offer by Quirk Education.

About half of Red & Yellow graduates move into the client sector, while the other half goes to agencies. This year, the graduate-class showcase will not only feature ‘creative work’ but also projects from the marketing students.

NSA spying could see tech companies could go ‘dark’ to regain trust

by David Glance, University of Western Australia With each new revelation of the scope of the American National Security Agency’s spying, perceptions of the importance of privacy are hardening around the world.

Systematic monitoring of the world’s communications can possibly be justified when terrorism is the driver, but it’s clear the spying has not been limited to terrorist targets.

Possibly the most shocking

Brazil’s largest oil company Petrobas has been spied on along with the United Nations and, possibly the most shocking of all, the phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

There could be no justification for spying on Angela Merkel on the basis of protecting the US or anyone else against terrorism. This was plain political espionage using the massive technological monitoring capabilities at the NSA’s disposal.

Nobody could be left in any doubt that the US’s interests extend beyond terrorism and for that reason corporations and civilians worldwide are always going to be “subjects of interest”.

After discovering that it has been subjected to NSA spying, Brazil has initiated calls for internet infrastructure and governance that bypasses the US. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is trying to legislate that internet companies such as Google and Facebook store all data relating to Brazilian users locally, a move being opposed by these companies.

Brazil is also building a “BRICS Cable” that connects Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in order to bypass the the current cable that is routed through Miami.

At the same time, internet users are revisiting their use of encryption and anonymisation technologies. Although the move to try and protect privacy might have started because of concerns over the NSA, there is now general acceptance that it’s not simply the US that is engaging in systematic monitoring. This has been a worldwide phenomenon with the only distinction being whether the spying was done simply in the individual country’s interests or on behalf of another like the US.

Security analyst Bruce Schneier has outlined five pieces of advice for those wishing to remain secure from the NSA and other agencies.

Going dark

The first recommendation he makes is to “hide in the network”. In essence, this means becoming part of the “dark web” provided by technologies such as Tor. This advice has been heeded by many people, with the number of users of the Tor network surging in August from 1 million to 5 million daily users. Users rated by country reflect those most affected by the NSA spying, namely: US, Brazil, Germany, France and Spain.

Using Tor is relatively straightforward involving the download of a Tor browser bundle that handles the connection to the network, along with providing a browser that is set up to maintain anonymity.

Tor does restrict what you can do on the web and involves the user understanding that Tor hides the details of the internet address you are using, not what you then subsequently do on the internet. There is no point using Tor, for example, if you are then going to log on to Facebook. Secure applications that encrypt all communications do exist, however. One such application, Cryptocat, can be used to provide secure encrypted internet messaging.

Schneier also argues users should be suspicious of commercial encryption software from large vendors. Here the question of who you trust becomes more challenging.

Apple has claimed it is not able to read user’s iMessage messages, but this has now been demonstrated to be false and certainly within the NSA’s capabilities, even without Apple’s assistance.

Instead of using commercial software, Schneier recommends using public-domain and open source encryption.

If you can’t beat them, join them?

All of this has left companies such as Google, Yahoo, Apple and others in a quandary. It is one thing for individual users to decide to protect themselves and to implement encryption technologies on top of their services, but it would become quite catastrophic for their businesses if governments started moving against them, following the lead of China, Iran and other countries.

There is definitely a motivation for major technology companies to provide a verifiably secure means of allowing users to communicate securely without an ability for them to provide access to security agencies, even if requested to. Two companies, Silent Circle and Lavabit, have come together to form the Dark Mail alliance in an attempt to do exactly this.

The Dark Mail alliance will attempt to create open source protocols that allow for end-to-end encrypted email without the possibility of back doors. Both companies do have the advantage of some credibility.

Lavabit was the service that Edward Snowden used when communicating with journalists and was forced to shut down when the FBI demanded it hand over keys to access encrypted communication from Snowden.

Silent Circle was formed by Phil Zimmerman, the inventor of the open source PGP encryption software which is still one of the most secure and trusted ways of encrypting email and other data available today.

The question is whether companies such as Google would be equally trusted if they were to implement Dark Mail or even their own version of Tor. But this is just what they may have to do to retain the trust of users and avoid countries legislating against their use or moving to create their own national versions of Dark Mail.

David Glance does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article here.

Media defies govt over Nkandla photo ‘ban’

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The media in its broadest sense, from print to social media, has collectively defied the ministers of the ‘security cluster’ in the South African government who claim that it is illegal to publish photographs of President Jacob Zuma’s taxpayer upgraded Nkandla home (later qualified as “sensitive” parts of the home), by, well, publishing photographs of President Jacob Zuma’s taxpayer upgraded Nkandla home.

Many of the major newspapers feature Nkandla on their front pages today. Twitter saw a #NkandlaPhoto hashtag born as social media users joined news media in defying the government warning.

The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) issued a statement saying its members “…will continue to publish images of the Nkandla upgrades because we firmly believe there is immense public interest in doing so. To stop doing so will be a betrayal of our duty as watchdogs of democracy.”

The Times ran a powerful cover on Friday (Nov 22) under featuring a photo of the Nkandla compound with the headline ‘So, arrest us’.

Tweets about “nkandla”

Newspaper images courtesy of Grubstreet.

MagLove: How to make a magazine in 24 hours

by MediaSlut (@MediaSlut) My choice of the best international and local magazine covers in MagLove this week:

Fricote
New York
Stylist (The 24-Hour Challenge special edition)
Time Out London
My Tyd (Rapport)
SARIE

Find a cover we should know about? Tweet us at @Marklives and @MediaSlut.

INTERNATIONAL

Fricote, Issue #13

I know, it’s not an award-winning cover, but I wanted to include it because it summarises our new way of eating out, perfectly. Humour always works to get a message across.

New York, 18 November 2013

Touchy topic. Something everyone has an opinion on. Great use of copy to promote their cover story. No conceptual images or designs. Just the raw text, in the middle of the page.

Stylist, The 24-Hour Challenge special edition, November 2013

Now here’s a nice story behind a cover where the subs couldn’t even spell ‘tired’ correctly (not really, but you know what I mean).

FORD Fiesta gave Stylist (a weekly UK title) and its staff the challenge of producing a WHOLE issue, in just 24 hours. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s an amazing story actually, especially if you’re in the publishing industry!

I would really suggest that you have a look at its “24 Hour Challenge” micro-site, and make sure you also watch the behind-the-scenes video (for a MediaSlut like myself, it’s like watching porn…).

And, if you want to know more, read about the “masterplan” and the little “diary” to learn from these leaders…

Time Out London, 12 November 2013

Time Out London has described my general feeling about Christmas perfectly (even though meant tongue-in-cheek).

In general, though, it’s a really strong cover, with a very punchy main cover line (“The C-Word”), and yes, Christmas has come early and is now just 33 days away… F!

LOCAL

My Tyd (Rapport), 17 November 2013

To celebrate the new design and relaunch of My Tyd (a weekly glossy lifestyle read inserted into newspaper Rapport every Sunday), South Africa’s own Afrikaans heartthrob has been placed on the latest edition (out last week) in a way that many fans wouldn’t have seen before: all bare-chested and covered in blue paint and powder!

Stunning end result, and great article!

You can also view below the little behind-the-scenes video with some extra pictures [for those die-hard Bobby-fans ;-)]:

SARIE, December 2013

SARIE magazine — well-known for its quality editorial, brand extentions, and for turning popular female personalities into the most beautiful cover girls — has broken the mould a bit, something it doesn’t do too often, and placed a male personality on its cover.

Nataniël is a familiar face to SARIE readers (he writes a hysterical monthly column for it), but he’s also a fresh and friendly face.

One of those covers (and personalities) that just always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, especially as we all start counting the days down to our holidays.

MagLove by @MediaSlut is a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week, recognising well thought-out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three-in-one) covers and celebrating the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them. The (for now anonymous) blogger behind MediaSlut knows way too much for his own good about media in South Africa, magazines in particular. His mission is to show when SA magazines fail but, most importantly, also when they succeed. If you’re looking for a library about SA magazines and news, this is your one-stop pitstop.

Media Future: HTC comes back to the party

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) It makes some of the best phones in the world. Yet HTC imploded as a brand this year. Now it’s back in South Africa.

Major smartphone manufacturers all seem to be taking turns to prove they have what it takes to restore tarnished reputations. The only brand that does not, for now, seem to have put a foot wrong is Samsung, which recently reported record sales, and now dominates the global smartphone market.

Briefly on the backfoot

Apple was briefly on the backfoot after the launch of its new iPhones left the market a little cool — it had to cut back production of its “low-cost” 5C due to disappointing orders — but it restored the faith with a dazzling new iPad a few weeks later.

This month, BlackBerry brought the new Z30 to South Africa, launching a competitive new phone even as it was losing the battle to convince investors it had a future.

Sony has released a string of compelling Xperia handsets that compete feature-for-feature with Samsung. The latest, the Z1, is expected to be one of the phones of the year.

Huwaei’s Ascend P6, the thinnest smartphone in the world at 6,18mm, and the runner up, Alcatel’s 6,45mm One Touch Idol Ultra, have brought new respect to those brands, too.

The turn of HTC

Last week, it was the turn of HTC. Already acknowledged to have produced one of the best phones in the world in the HTC One, the company has nevertheless imploded as a global force. In South Africa, its market share vanished even more swiftly.

In response, HTC closed the local office, and appointed Ingram Micro, a world leader in technology distribution, as its local distributor.

Last week, the company introduced its new team, a new strategy and a new device.

Peter Blantanis, Ingram Micro’s head of sales and marketing for HTC in South Africa, insisted that they would not dwell on the past.

“Focused on the future”

“What happened happened, but we are focused on the future. We do know it’s going to take some time, and our job is to rebuild the brand in South Africa,” he said at a media briefing. “We’ve got to take the great devices and move forward from that.”

The device that will lead the new HTC charge is not the One, but rather its scaled down little brother, the One Mini. Clearly a response to Samsung’s release of Mini versions of the Galaxy S3 and S4, it is nevertheless a sleek, powerful and appealing handset. However, it will retail at a high R5500, which positions it alongside the flagship devices from Huawei and Alcatel, and Sony’s mid-range, large-screen Xperias. And, for that matter, alongside the “cheaper” iPhone 5C.

Its advantage is that it looks and feels uncannily like the HTC One, with an aluminium “unibody” and tapered edges that make for one of the most comfortable grips of any phone in the world.

The downside is a 4.3” display instead of 5”, but it makes up for this with dual frontal stereo speakers with the Beats Audio integration that gave the One a real edge. It comes standard with 16GB of storage, but has no expandable MicroSD slot — another disadvantage compared to rivals. More than 13 hours battery life makes up for this.

Sole focus

The One and One Mini will be the sole focus of HTC in this country, at least until the second quarter of next year.

“HTC has never given up on SA,” Blantanis insists.

The more important question, however, is whether South Africa gave up on HTC. Die-hard fans who still swear by HTC’s early Android devices will set out to prove it didn’t.

Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. He is a consulting editor to MarkLives and our media tech columnist. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee.

This article has been republished from Gadget.

Shelf Life: A Toy for Toy Christmas retail story #ExtraSpecial

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.