Unseen stability
Yet, an egg absolutely is supposed to crack, the crack is an innate product asset, too! Otherwise, eggs would be hard to consume or to process further – so the crack is part of the shell strength-message, however the crack must only come at the right time.
The eggshell is a fascinating miracle of nature itself, and far more then an ingenious product packaging of a sublime design. Thinner than fine bone china porcellain, yet so strong. The palisade layer towering over the mammillary body presents an architecture of chalk cuticles reinforced underneath by the dense meshwork of collagen strands woven into the shells’ inner membrane. All these very different components render the shell exceptionally strong, given that the hen can eat what she needs to form such perfection again and again day by day over the duration of 100 weeks.
Of course, we somehow knew this from science books or from our own experience in breaking or peeling boiled eggs. And it was somehow such an ordinary thing, we didn’t really care.
Putting things into perspective
Sometimes altering, or in this case shrinking, ones’ own perspective enlarges the experience. At least that’s true when it comes to scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Based in Wuerzburg, Germany, Science photographer Stefan Diller is a specialist in SEM and Nano-Movie making. He had shot insects, plants, air borne particles and nano-mechanics, but he had never before done an eggshell. So he, too, was fascinated with our request to shoot one for us.
SEM is not like usual microscopy, there is no light going through an object like tissue or blood samples, and therefore not all objects are equally suitable for SEM. Because, for SEM the objects need to get coated with a very thin metal layer such as gold to make them electron conductive. The electrons then reflect the surface and show the object in far greater resolution and detail than any normal microscopes can.
And what you see then is truly astonishing! And it is real, because we did not create any fictional images, the Nano Movie is a visual journey over the real eggshell – and underneath to the collagen membrane – seen through SEM. Only the posters and web banners we offer for free usage in our VIP Lounge added the astronaut as a fictional element to raise curiosity and round off the story of an “Oval Eggspedition”.
So how to use the campaign?
Commonly there is a poster, a banner or a flyer to market a topic – it gets seen and it gets forgotten again. A campaign has a mechanic involving more parts. The posters and web banners are currently available in nine languages – more are to come and more can be requested any time. Customers can personalize them with their own logo. The QR code leads to the Nano Movie, so posters or banners and the movie always come as a package to promote shell strength.
The beauty in it is that the campaign consisting of posters, banners and a movie comes for free – no costs to create something of your own that supports you in marketing your shell strength. Hang up your poster, frame it and give it way or put a banner and the link to the movie on your website. Support your USP of industry leading shell strength with powerful imagery.
