I was intrigued to discover recently that premium anti-ageing skincare range Astalift is now available in the UK, four years on from its original release in homeland Japan. The range has all the design and linguistic cues you’d expect from an upmarket skincare brand: glamorous packaging, neat little application tools (those tiny little spoons just scream luxury, don’t they?), dual-language descriptors (English and French, naturellement), breakthrough science and a liberal application of words like ‘radiant’, ‘luminous’ and ‘youthful’.

So far, so normal, right? Well, yes – at least until you get as far as the manufacturer. It then becomes just a little less standard, because in this case, Astalift is a product of Fujifilm Corporation – long-standing manufacturers of photographic and digital media technologies.

At this point, your thoughts are probably running along the lines of something like: “Okay, this is going to be one of those ‘Top 10 worst brand extensions’ blogs, isn’t it?” Actually, it’s not, for two simple reasons. Firstly, the parent brand has acknowledged the seeming incongruity of a photographic manufacturer going into health and beauty, keeping any link between Astalift and Fujifilm firmly restricted to the fine print on the website and back of pack.

More importantly, however, the new line builds on transferable brand expertise and a very real set of RTBs, as the company explains:

“Fujifilm’s Astalift series is a comprehensive anti-aging skincare brand, developed by using cutting edge core technologies accumulated over many years of research and development of photosensitive materials. These distinctive technologies include the findings of its own collagen research, anti-oxidization technology and nano-technology.”

With the abundance of new, almost sci-fi technologies now utilised by the health, wellness and beauty industries, it’s suddenly not so surprising that a brand such as Fujifilm, with its heritage in capturing and arresting the effects of light, could put that experience to good use in anti-ageing.

So there you have it. Not an April Fool’s joke, but rather a potentially very lucrative decision by the business to look beyond the first circle of innovation. To close with a question that’s often lumped in with the laziest of marketing and business strategy, but can just occasionally prove wholly apposite: when was the last time you thought outside the box?

Fujifilm certainly has.

Lil-lets has announced a £2m marketing campaign to promote  its latest refresh, which sees new packaging for its existing products and the launch of three new products – including ’teen towels’ for nine to 14-year olds.

It’s good to see a mainstream sanitary brand taking the initiative by moving its products and designs forward – something that in recent years has been largely restricted to more niche, premium brands such as Moxie.

Lil-lets has a strong heritage as the brand that aims to help teens become more comfortable with the changes taking place in their bodies, and it’s great to see it reclaiming that ground.

When it comes to innovation on the brand, the new offer for 9-14 year olds combines a discreet, smaller product with packaging that aims to introduce some ‘girl glamour’ to the younger end of the market, and potentially allows the brand to justify a higher price point – always helpful in a mature category.

Having said that, the brand may come under fire from some quarters if the teen range is openly positioned for 9 years upwards, despite the fact that the launch is presumably a response to biological fact rather than another attempt to sexualise tweens.

On the renovation side, introduction of no-rustle packaging will hopefully support the brand’s somewhat faded positioning as the discreet feminine choice, but Lil-lets will need to build on a good start if it’s to achieve the category rejuvenation it hopes for.

All in all, some fair first steps, but still a long way to go.

In this industry it is always really exciting to see a new product out there in the marketplace that some of The Value Engineers thinking went into. One of the latest examples to hit shelves in the UK is Powerade Zero; another piece of NPD exploring the boundaries of the functional beverage category.

The multi-media campaign supporting the launch is a great execution of an insight led proposition brought to life in an engaging and memorable way. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to spell out what the insights were as they belong to Powerade, but what I can say is that the campaign execution taps into them superbly well!

Furthermore with the London 2012 Olympics on the horizon the choice of Jessica Ennis, a darling of Team GB, at the heart of the campaign seems to be an obvious fit. However, I would suggest that there are some more specific and strategic reasons why she especially suits the aspirations of the target consumer.

A pre-occupation with body shape has resulted in more gym-goers fixated with a need to shed fat and tone their body. This represents a slow moving cultural shift in the last twenty years away from the original ‘spit and sawdust’ power gyms still extremely popular in certain areas such as South Wales. Gym goers will now often search for ways to remain hydrated without using the calorific sports drinks that are often perceived to undo all their good work. Ennis’ defined but not overtly muscular body shape suggests a similar approach and her dedication in the traditionally masculine environment of professional sport makes her a perfect role model.

Great to see Powerade Zero out there on shelves and getting the media support the product deserves!

There’s nothing revelatory about the idea that ethnic foods are becoming more popular with mainstream consumers, or that consumers are seeking out more exotic flavours in food and drink. Witness Mintel’s flavour predictions for 2010, which touted traditionally ethnic ingredients such as cardamom, hibiscus, cupuaçu and rose water as emerging flavours of choice for US consumers.

Now, McDonald’s has taken ethnic marketing one step further, using African Americans, Hispanics and Asians to shape products and communications that the company then rolls out to its white, middle-class audiences.

According to McDonald’s US CMO, Neil Golden: “The ethnic consumer tends to set trends…So they help set the tone for how we enter the marketplace”.

While the fast food giant still uses specialist agencies to create communications tailored to minority ethnic audiences – particularly African Americans - it then increasingly puts mass-market spend behind them. A recent article in Business Week examines what it calls McDonald’s ’minority-shapes-majority’ strategy in more detail, and is well worth a read.

McDonald's recruitment ad targets African-American communities

The traditional model of marketing to minority ethnic communities has revolved around one of two things. In one, a mainstream company tailors its communications – and in rare cases, its product – to so-called niche audience using the services of a specialist agency. In the other, a specialist manufacturer finds their success in appealing to minority markets can translate to the mainstream, and adopts their communications accordingly.

McDonald’s decision to reverse the dynamic of ethnic marketing may not seem like a great leap forward at first sight, but it’s a strategy that could have a dramatic impact on FMCG markets in both the US and the UK.

Inevitably, success will see imitators riding the wake of the Golden Arches in the US. But with changing tastes, social trends and culture over the past decades showing that the ‘salad bowl’ analogy is becoming as ripe for the UK as the US, there’s an opportunity for the real fast movers to remove the ‘niche’ from ethnic marketing – and potentially find themselves ahead of the trend.

For those interested, the Business Week article can be found here – and is well worth a read.

Being a chocoholic I can never stop myself from strolling along the chocolate shelves. Most recently, when yet again in the mood for chocolate, I came across these two new products by Malteaser and Kit Kat:

Kit Kat just simply sticking a bunny on their chocolate bar – sweet – yet low cost, low impact!?

Whereas MaltEaster did something a tiny bit more clever by changing name and product format, which put a smile on my face.  A lovely example of how to tweak a product.