Clever Packaging And Age-Old Illusion Delivers Video Message In Wine Bottle

September 16, 2019 by Dave Haynes

This is not really a digital signage application, but certainly it could be done as such for visual merchandising.

The now-retired founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group sent a gift around to staffers to mark the company’s 20th anniversary. The gift was a bottle of wine, but it came with a lot of packaging that set it up to be interactive.

A pull-out slot to the side of the wine bottle had a scannable bar code that launched a video that then plays on the recipient’s smartphone, with Jack Ma relating 20 years of Alibaba. Popping the slot back into the packaging then reflects the video in the wine bottle.

It is a clever variation on the age-old Pepper’s Ghost visual trick, and has some similarities to glass pyramid reflective thingies Denmark’s RealFiction markets.

Not sure if the bottle needs some sort of third-party film to make the visual pop, or if the visual bounces off a mirror on the other side of the bottle. Or something else.

I do see this as having some potential for merchandising applications for certain kinds of booze. Might be a challenge with a meaty Shiraz or Cab, however.

Hat Tip to Matthew Brennan, who posted about this on Twitter …

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Jack Ma&#39;s special message in a bottle. Gift to <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Alibaba?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Alibaba</a> staff for the company&#39;s 20th anniversary. <a href=”https://t.co/U0AOAj8RXY”>pic.twitter.com/U0AOAj8RXY</a></p>&mdash; Matthew Brennan (@mbrennanchina) <a href=”https://twitter.com/mbrennanchina/status/1172112073951571971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>September 12, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>