Brand owners are always looking for ways to differentiate their product, and catching the eye so the consumer is critical. A company can have the best-tasting product, for example, but if no one notices, there will be no sales.
 
By all accounts, Medea Vodka has a successful product. The vodka, which is distilled in Holland, has earned six gold medals in its first two years since being relaunched in March 2014. The prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition presented Medea Vodka with a Double Gold. Tasting Panel magazine gave the vodka a 93 rating.
 
Given these awards, Medea Vodka’s growth would likely be slow, but the company has put as much thought into its packaging as it has in its vodka. Medea Vodka has drawn widespread attention for its Bluetooth programmable bottle, complete with LED lights, an eye-catching solution for homes and bars alike.
 
“When we relaunched Medea Vodka in March 2014, we created a technology team, we changed our technology to a Bluetooth programmable bottle using iBeacon, an Apple-based technology,” said Brandon Laidlaw, Medea Vodka’s CEO. “Now our bottle can be programmed from a smart phone. You can program any message, even from across the country.”
 
Once you download the Apple or Android app, you push the on/off bottle. The app will ask you to set up the bottle, and when you push the button, the bottle and app are connected. You can program up to 10 messages. The bottle looks deceptively easy to make, but Laidlaw noted that there is a lot of programming involved.
 
“It looks simple, but it contains more than 250,000 lines of Java code, and someone would have to hack all of that code,” he added.
 
Laidlaw said that the New York Stock Exchange was the idea behind the LED lighting on the bottle.
 
“We knew we could personalize the bottle in a unique way,” he said. “People can interact with the bottle. For us, the biggest challenge was creating Bluetooth capabilities for Android apps, as there are nearly 40 different types of Android phones, and only one Apple.”
 
Medea Vodka is earning notice from leading retailers.
 
“We launched out Bluetooth bottle in October 2014, and it is really taking off. We are already in national accounts like Costco, Sam’s Club and Albertson’s,” Laidlaw said. “We are averaging 2,000 downloads a day, and 14,000 a week. It makes for a great gift.”
 
Laidlaw said that the LED technology is patented, and will cover far more than just liquor bottles.
 
“The LED is created on a flexible board, and we put plastic molding on top of the printed circuit board,” he said. “Our two 3V batteries are on the side of the bottle. They can’t be replaced, but have 20 hours of battery life, and can be turned on and off. We even have GPS on the bottle. We just were granted a design patent for all cylinder bottles with an electronic device on it. We are looking to expand, and are currently working on vases for the floral industry.”