Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) has extended its use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology to cover its Lindeman’s Gentleman’s Collection brand.

Following the success of the 19 Crimes Augmented Reality app, Gentleman’s Collection, which launched in 2015 and is widely stocked across UK grocery and convenience, has now been equipped with the same innovative AR technology.

Scanning the front label of the Gentleman’s Collection bottle with a smartphone or tablet will load a ‘Gentleman’s Guide to Augmented Reality’, as told by Dr Henry Lindeman himself, the founder of the Lindeman’s winery.

And with a nod to this new innovation and the success of the 19 Crimes AR experience, TWE has now launched a new app which will bring all of its AR technology “under one roof”. The ‘Living Wine Labels’ app, which is now available in the app store, will host all brand experiences for Gentleman’s Collection and 19 Crimes.

The 19 Crimes app has enjoyed significant success since it launched in October 2017, with over 20,000 people downloading the app in the UK alone and it being used by over 150,000 people.

The launch of the technology for the Gentleman’s Collection range will be supported by on-pack communication – all bottles will have an on-pack sticker, while the back label copy will inform consumers at the point of purchase about the AR and app. And, of course, Gentleman’s Collection will now visible on the new Living Wine Labels app

UK shopper marketing support will focus on promoting the AR technology in Father’s Day activation. For example, Nisa will be supporting it with an online campaign and in-store gift bags, while across Asda there will a sampling campaign as well as in-store gift bags.

From a consumer perspective, the brand will use lifestyle influencers in the UK to leverage its reach and introduce Gentleman’s Collection and its AR technology to a new audience; this will be further supported by a series of paid social media posts.

Kirstie McCosh, Marketing Director, Europe, says: “Following the huge success of the same activity with our 19 Crimes brand we are very excited to unveil the addition of Augmented Reality to Gentleman’s Collection. It brings another dimension to the shopper experience with Gentleman’s Collection – becoming a further talking point to share and enjoy with friends. From an in-store perspective, Augmented Reality elevates Gentleman’s Collection’s presence, appealing to and engaging consumers with an interactive opportunity.”

The ‘Living Wine Labels’ app is globally available and will host the relevant brands in specific markets. In Europe, the focus will be 19 Crimes and Gentleman’s Collection.

Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) is one of the world’s largest wine companies, with a portfolio which includes Penfolds, Lindemann’s, Wolf Blass, Beringer, Gabbiano and Greg Norman Estates. TWE is focused on portfolio premiumisation and brand-led marketing and its wine is sold in more than 70 countries around the world.

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Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) has unveiled the latest product in its Male Millennial wine range, “The Banished”, and added an Augmented Reality app for its 19 Crimes range as it looks to drive popularity with males aged 18 to 34.

“The Banished” is a dark red blend, produced using extra tannin extract, which TWE says leaves a taste with enhanced darker fruits and dark chocolate notes on the finish. It is the latest addition to TWE’s 19 Crimes portfolio – the 19 crimes referring to the various offences which could lead to people being transported for life to Australia during Victorian times.

Each of the wines in the range features a different real Victorian who suffered transportation for life on its label. “The Banished” features James Wilson, a convict who was found guilty of treason in the 19th Century for involvement with the Irish Fenian movement and sent to Australia, although he later escaped to America.

With the launch of “The Banished”, TWE is now making a big push in the run up to Hallowe’en. 19 Crimes will be supported in retail over the coming weeks with a neck collar promotion which features a new 19 Crimes app, which uses Augmented Reality (AR) technology. The app brings to life two of 19 Crimes’ criminals-turned-colonists. Hovering a mobile hand-held device (e.g. mobile phone or tablet) over the bottles will bring the character on the label to life, sharing their stories of rule-breaking that sent them across the ocean to Australia.

TWE says Male Millennial wines are one of the growing success stories in the wine sector. Kantar recently outlined a significant gap in wine consumption amongst men aged between 18-34, with their insights showing that only 34.4% of Male Millennials drank wine purchased in the off-trade each month, the lowest of any demographic group.

In the 12 months leading up to July 15^th this year, the Male Millennial segment has shown 95% value growth, and TWE claims that 19 Crimes is performing extremely well.

Since its launch in the UK in 2015, the brand has grown significantly with latest figures showing the brand enjoying a 86% year on year value growth in total off-trade in the 12 months up to July 15^th, while in grocery it has a rate of sale over four time higher that of its nearest competitor. At the same time, it has added significant value to the overall wine category, with an average price of over £7 a bottle.

Tom King, Managing Director, TWE Europe, says: “This is a very exciting time for the 19 Crimes brand. The latest market insights show that there is strong demand for our wines amongst this very important market segment. So it is a perfect time to launch “The Banished” in the UK, a wine that perfectly targets our core consumers.”

King adds: “We are also hugely excited by the launch of our Augmented Reality app across the whole 19 Crimes range. Our insight clearly shows that millennials like brands with real and authentic stories and our AR innovation brings the 19 Crimes story to life. There is nothing else like it out there in the market and you really have to try it to see how good it is. It speaks directly to our target consumer and is yet another string to the bow of this fantastic brand.”

19 Crimes is currently the wine sponsor of the London Craft Beer Festival – a series of three consumer Craft Beer events that are taking place across the UK this summer – namely in Edinburgh, London and Bristol. At each event, the brand has an active presence with both the Red Blend and “The Banished” served at the “Barrel and Wheel”, a bespoke wine bar, which matches the wines with a selection of cheeses.

Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) is one of the world’s largest wine companies, with a portfolio which includes Penfolds, Lindemann’s, Wolf Blass, Beringer, Gabbiano and Greg Norman Estates. TWE is focused on portfolio premiumisation and brand-led marketing and its wine is sold in more than 70 countries around the world.

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New packaging technology is helping promotional marketers create even greater impact on the way people shop, says Chris Baldwin from Sodexo. PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Technology is moving faster than ever with new ways to find, buy and redeem products popping up every day.

Not to state the obvious, but that makes technology more important than ever in driving a successful campaign — and brands who get on board with innovation can reap the benefits in terms of appeal and functionality. Great tech should make life easier, right?

Is there anything new about packaging technology?

According to the Savvy Cynics 2016 Consumer Promotions Survey Report, nearly 70% of people either look for, or are attracted by, promotional messages on product.

Clearly, on-pack promotions have traditionally played a huge role in promotional campaigns but the whole industry is now changing dramatically and with it come new packaging opportunities.

Retailers can tap into innovative packaging ideas, overcoming issues around space, design, and manufacturing to reach more customers and make an impact.

Augmented Reality – looking forwards, and up, and down….

A ‘newish’ way to take your conversation with customers to the next level is with Augmented Reality (AR). With AR, brands can boost an offer with loads of extra, fun content. Consumers simply use a zapcode to access more info from games – and competitions too.

Casper Thykier, co-founder of AR specialists Zappar, is a leader in AR technology. He says: “If you get the three Cs right, you get engagement and dwell time.”

In this case, the three Cs are:

• Context
• Call to Action
• Content

Thykier adds: “AR packaging is great for increasing frequency with your product and giving you rich data analytics, turning your physical products into a living, breathing multimedia channel you control.”

Some of the best examples in recent years include inspiration from traditional consumer promotions, fused with technology to appeal to the discerning 21st century shopper.

In 2011 Heinz used technology created by Zappar’s rival, Blippar, to grant access to a Heinz recipe book (which when you think about it is a surprisingly traditional offering.) By downloading the app and holding it up to a Heinz ketchup bottle, shoppers could view the recipes which appeared on pages as if they were on the bottle itself. Heinz used this to drive people to its Facebook page to access more content.

NFC Keeping in touch with your Customers

Near Field Communication or NFC for short is also allowing consumers to interact with brand packaging. By tapping their smartphones on the labels the tags transfer data between devices wirelessly and without data or internet required.

Potential brand applications are numerous, such as advertising, shopper activation and engagement and loyalty schemes.

Malibu recently used NFC technology to great effect as part of their #BecauseSummer campaign in September 2016. They encouraged consumers to tap the image of a Malibu sunset on select bottles, to gain access to exlusive content, as well as being entered into prize draws.

Let’s get personal…

Personalised experiences with brands have become easier than ever thanks in part to a rise in digital printing.

Brands such as Marmite, Coca Cola, Nutella and Vaseline have seized the opportunity to create fully bespoke personalisation for consumers and considering that the worth of the digital print for packaging market was valued at £10.5bn in 2015 and is expected to grow annually by 13.6% according to a study by Smithers Pira, I think we can agree this trend is set to explode in popularity.

Coca Cola’s ‘Share-A-Coke’ campaign which featured 100,000 of the most popular names printed on bottle labels around the world contributed to a 6.8% increase in Coca Cola’s global Facebook community, as well as boosting their index scores from 9.6 to 12.4 on the first day of the campaign alone.

So has digital printing reached its tipping point?

With so much potential in this approach to packaging, not to mention digital printing’s economic and speed to market advantages, it’s a proven way to engage with customers whilst remaining very cost effective, so it seems like a no-brainer to continue going forward.

As technology continues to advance and experiences with AR, NFC and iBeacon become more seamless, Global brands have an exciting opportunity to exploit ‘new-age packaging’ to create a new kind of customer experience that has a holistic focus on the creation of ‘marketing moments.’

Those brands able to find the right balance of brief, slick and seamless product interactions with their audience, will reap the most reward-  building trust, relationships and loyalty over time in the most fun way possible.

Chris Baldwin is Director of Consumer Programs at Sodexo. The Sodexo family, which includes the Promorati brands Protravel, Filmology, Fotorama and Entice, is Headline Sponsor of The IPM Awards 2017.

Fotorama, part of the Sodexo family has published a new eBook, How new technology is driving the promotional marketing industry, taking a closer look at the digital revolution and how it can help marketers influence shoppers.

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Swiss retailer Migros has enhanced its mobile app with a new Discover function, which uses Augmented Reality technology to let shoppers scan more than 5,000 products and access 2,000 Migusto recipes, 80,000 real-time product ratings on the Migipedia platform and nutritional values and further product information – with more content planned for the future.

The new Discover function was developed by Y&R Group Switzerland and its Futurecom interactive division.

Discover uses the smartphone camera to identity unique features on the product packaging and match them with the product database. Y&R claims that approach will in future make QR codes and barcodes for product identification redundant.

As soon as a product has been “discovered”, the product name appears on the smartphone screen together with options and information available in connection with the product, such as suitable recipes or ratings.

Discover has a feedback mechanism that enables the user experience to be constantly optimised.

Discover for iOS and Android, as well as the related back-end infrastructure for image editing and sample identification, was implemented by Futurecom using state-of-the-art technology, including Apple’s new programming language Swift and Microsoft’s new open-source framework ASP.NET Core. In addition to this, essential system components function in the cloud.

Alongside the development and implementation of the Discover function, Y&R Group Switzerland is also responsible for accompanying communication measures aimed at introducing Migros customers to Discover. A film has been produced with this aim in mind, as well as advertisements and various online and social media measures.

Migros is a cooperative society (the Federation of Migros Cooperatives) which is Switzerland’s largest retail company, its largest supermarket chain and its largest employer. It is also one of the 40 largest retailers in the world. It has than two million members.

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