What? “The best part of waking up” is Folgers? Not anymore! You snooze, you lose, Folgers. And you were probably snoozing too long because you didn’t have an alarm clock built right into your coffee container. That’s what Nescafé did and look at them! They’re fresh and bright eyed and rebranding themselves with a 3D printing ad campaign!
See, Nescafé wanted to stay fresh in the minds of consumers and find a way to re-present their instant coffee to a world drowning in brewed lattes and macchiatos, particularly to creative types who might just want to chug some powdered space caffeine before beginning a day of cool electronics and 3D printing projects. So, what’s a coffee brand to do? They start 3D printing the lids to their jars of coffee and attaching alarm clocks to the inside.
Well, Nescafé wasn’t really doing all of the 3D printing and gizmo-ing. They enlisted the help of Publicis Mexico, who came up with the idea, and NOTCOT‘s creative studio NOTLabs, who actually made it happen. Here’s the idea: there’s an alarm clock, built into the 3D-printed lid of the Nescafé bottle, with 7 different alarm sounds, such as birds chirping or sounds meant to coax the mind into alertness, synchronized to a soft, pulsing LED light. In order to turn it off, the sleeper has to unscrew the lid, possibly inspiring him/her/zir to make a cup to wake up.
Here’s how it works: the base of the lid is made up of a four-way joystick and an OLED display, powered by an arduino, while the lid itself is 3D printed in two parts. The outside is made from nylon laser sintered by Shapeways and the inside is fabricated by NOTlabs on their Makerbot Replicators. And all 200 jars of coffee were hand assembled and soldered by NOTlabs. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of NOTCOT, Jean Aw, explains how 3D printing was essential to the project, “From the first discussions, 3D printing was already integral to the original concept. The greatest benefit to [printing in-house] was being able to make minor changes on the fly during the production process and make sure everything fit ever-so-perfectly.”
Whatever you think of gimmicky ad campaigns, you’ve got to appreciate the Alarm Cap concept. Now, Nescafé just needs to convince people that their coffee tastes good. To see the 3D printed Alarm Cap in all of its marketing glory, watch the ad below:
Source: Cool Hunting
