Friday 22nd January:
Let your fans decide
Vitamin Water’s latest flavour, launching in March this year, was developed and named by the brand’s Facebook fans. The black cherry and lime flavoured drink will be called ‘Connect’. One Facebook fan, Sarah from Illinois, won $5,000 for her role in developing this new product.
The competition was interesting and unique in that it used Facebook fans to develop all aspects of the product and is a great example of co-creation.
Choosing the flavour – over the summer Facebook fans were able to monitor and add to buzz about different flavours. The more chatter about a flavour online, the higher it was rated on the Facebook page. And by mid-September the most ten talked-about flavours were put to Facebook fans for them to vote for their favourite. This is a good example of using a community to help sort and rank ideas in a co-creation process. Fans couldn’t create their own flavours from scratch, but could influence the top 10 flavours and then vote for the best.
Designing the packaging – when the flavour had been selected (in October last year), the Facebook fans were able to use the app to design the packaging – the look and feel, the blurb and colours used on the label. Fans could collaborate with up to two more Facebook friends to develop the packaging and the final winners were chosen by a panel of experts.
Naming the product - alongside the packaging and look-and-feel, Facebook Fans were asked to name the product. The team who created the winning name were given a prize of $5,000.
Tagged with: Co-creation, Food and drink, Health, Social networking, Water
Thursday 21st January:
Starbucks in disguise
The trouble with success and turning into a big business is that punters start to think your coffee tastes a little too corporate. Starbucks is making an attempt to look less yuppie-ish to urban hipsters and more countrified for more rural folk. They’ve launched ‘Coffee and Tea’ cafes with rustic hardwood floors and a distinct lack of the eponymous green siren roundel. That said, Coffee and Tea still promises to deliver your favourite latte, just how you like it.
Ref. http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/coffee-and-tea
Tagged with: Authenticity, Food and drink, Retail
Wednesday 20th January:
Let them wear scent
Now you can smell the fragrance created especially for the kings. The Creed of Paris group, founded in 1760, has decided to make its exclusive perfumes, originally made for King Edward VIII in 1936, available to us less blue-blooded types. The limited Windsor edition includes only 320 bottles, on sale in the US for $400.
Perfume notes include British gin, Jamaican lime, Scottish highland pine, Nuits de Young roses, Bahamian orange, Canadian cedar and Australian eucalyptus. The design of 1.7 oz. leather-wrapped bottles, which are numbered by laser and signed by sixth-generation master perfumer Olivier Creed, is stylish and full of dignity. “Royalty need not shout,” King Edward used to say, and the new fragrance surely embodies that philosophy.
The scent has a rich palette of subtle aromas and is manufactured from ingredients which were grown in the British Empire. This new perfume is a kind of retro trip made over the colonies, which King Edward ruled for just 10 months. He abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American, and so became the Duke of Windsor.
Tagged with: Fragrance, Limited edition, Luxury
Tuesday 19th January:
Mood lighting
A new fashion store featuring an interior design based on women’s moods has opened in the Russian capital Moscow. Mood Swings, whose interior was designed by Swedish firm Boys Don’t Cry and French media artist Cyril Duval, features distinct spaces inspired by the many moods a woman may experience in the course of a day.
Spaces within the store, which stocks cult international brands such as LIMI feu, Bernhard Willhelm and Minä Perhonen, include ‘Avant-garde’, ‘Classic’, ‘Minimalistic’ and ‘Funny girls’.
With a little imagination and fantasy, Mood Swings calls on dream-like innovation to inspire its customers.
Ref. https://www.lsnglobal.com/seed/view/1310
Tagged with: Fashion, Retail
Monday 18th January:
Mixing digital and paper
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The makers of the popular, durable notebook have a new online tool that can print custom pages to fit perfectly into your Moleskine. The MSK wizard (as it’s called) can create pages with any image or text you want, build an attractive calendar, or make your address book Moleskine-friendly. There’s a lovely little video from Moleskine that shows you how it’s done – a nice mix of the digital world and old-school writing.
Watch at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJpVt0E4Bxk&feature=player_embedded
Ref. http://lifehacker.com/5195753/add-custom-printed-pages-to-your-moleskine
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Tagged with: Online-Offline, Stationery
Tuesday 12th January:
A fresh twist on a sturdy classic
Dr. Martens have just announced these limited edition versions of their iconic eight-hole boot and three-hole shoe: red contrast stitching and laces instead of the traditional yellow. (Many thanks, Em).
Popularised by the skinhead movement of the 1960s, Dr Martens were an essential part of skinhead fashion along with Levi’s 501s, Sta-Prests, Ben Sherman shirts, Fred Perry polos, Crombie overcoats, Baracuta Harringtons and Alpha MA1s. These brands came to define ‘skin’ culture and Doc Martens were the uniform boot. However, the only form of customisation was to use coloured laces. This limited edition adds a contemporary edge to the brand’s heritage.
Ref. http://slamxhype.com/fashion/dr-martens-limited-edition-red-footwear/
Tagged with: Fashion, Limited edition, Personalisation, Youth
Monday 11th January:
A new kind of ‘chilled’ drink
In Los Angeles, medical marijuana dispensaries outnumber Starbucks and McDonald’s restaurants combined. And now the city is embracing a new mood-altering beverage with a cannabis-oriented marketing campaign. (A big thanks to Eliot S from the windy city).
Southern California has become the bestselling market for Mary Jane’s Relaxing Soda, a sugary drink laced with kava, a South Pacific root purported to have sedative properties. Matt Moody, the nutritional supplement developer who created the beverage, said the name is an unabashed reference to weed, though the relaxant compounds in kava are chemically unrelated to those in marijuana.
Along with drinks like Slow Cow and Ex Chill, Mary Jane’s is part of a new group of so-called slow-down or anti-energy drinks. They rely on folk-medicine sedatives, including kava, camomile and valerian, to provide an alternative to caffeine-laced and jitter-inducing energy drinks such as Red Bull. These ‘relaxation’ drinks have become popular fodder for food bloggers, with some calling Mary Jane’s ‘weed in a bottle’.
Nathan Scholl, a waiter at a Santa Monica restaurant, said he’s ‘hooked’ on the cola-coloured liquid, which comes packed in a clear 12oz bottle with a blue label. “I drink it after a long day. It takes five or 10 minutes to sink in and then I feel relaxed and slightly euphoric,” he said.
Ref. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kava29-2009dec29,0,6531543.story
Tagged with: Energy, Food and drink, Health
Friday 8th January:
Gap Canada protects shoppers against Murphy’s Law
It’s Murphy’s Law that as soon as you buy a particular item, it’s on the sales rack the following week. So, hoping to give customers some insurance against such eventualities, Gap Canada has launched a program that automatically refunds the difference when that happens.
To take part in Gap’s free Sprize program, which is now available in ten Gap stores in and around Vancouver, B.C., customers simply sign up with their name, email address and phone number. Then, any time they make a purchase at a participating Gap store, they’re protected against sales that take place in the near future. Specifically, if the prices on any items purchased have dropped within 45 days of the transaction, Gap will automatically credit the difference to the customer’s Sprize account. The resulting SprizeMoney can then be used toward future purchases in participating stores.
Of course, beyond offering consumers peace of mind, increased transparency and a compelling reason to register with the company, the Sprize program also surely gives Gap new insight into its best customers and their shopping habits – and a way to keep them coming back. How long before this one becomes standard practice?
Ref. http://www.springwise.com/retail/sprize/
Thursday 7th January:
Car-parks start earning their keep
Home Depot may be struggling, but it owns a lot of land – up to 15 acres per store, including vast parking lots. Now it hopes to cash in on all that sprawling vacant asphalt by selling off lots to other retailers.
There’s nothing more useless than a vacant parking lot (unless you’re a teen doing wheelies). Most shoppers would appreciate the opportunity to easily check off multiple store errands during their Home Depot shopping trips. So to lure potential tenants during a real estate slump, the company is targeting chains that complement its morning contractor business, like auto repair shops and fast-food chains that sell breakfast.
Recession-resistant chains like Chick-fil-A are continuing to expand, so it could be a smart move. ‘It’s no different from a power center anchored by a Target or Kohl’s, with small tenants like Sally Beauty Supply as a co-tenant,’ says Colin McGranahan of Bernstein Research.
Tagged with: Credit crunch, DIY, Retail
Wednesday 6th January:
Multi-media talent transactions
Australia has launched its first online multi-media platform aimed at matching creative professionals with potential employers. With over 80,000 Australians already signed up, recruitment agencies and over 30 Australian-based companies such as The HyperFactory, MTV Networks, Discovery Networks, Billy Blue College of Design, the white agency and Sixty40 have all discovered a new hub for finding talent.
Conceived by media professionals, Matt Fayle and Pip Jamieson, the idea was born in early 2009 recognising a much-needed resource for the media professional environment. They explain, ‘We started with the notion of blending the biggest job search engine with the multi-media capabilities of social networking. What we’ve ended up with is the best parts of Seek, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube all in one.’
Currently only in beta form, creative professionals across the spectrum are offered a unique template in which to showcase their experience, achievements and current projects. Features include the option to upload show reels, an unlimited number of multi-media files and specialised alerts to link with peers and potential employers. Employers can become introduced to their future employees via a virtual handshake targeting both passive and active job seekers.
Ref. http://www.psfk.com/2009/12/staying-in-the-loop-networking-down-under.html