May 25, 2018

BOULDER --  Gululu , the world's first interactive water bottle designed to keep kids hydrated, announced the international launch of Gululu Go, a lighter, more portable version with a sound speaker. The launch marks a major step forward in the product's interactivity and toward the brand's goal of enabling kids to love drinking water and build a healthy habit, the company said. According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, dehydration in children can result in poor health, including cognitive and emotional problems, and is associated with diabetes and obesity. Research by the UK Natural Hydration Council found that if children become dehydrated, their auditory number span, visual attention and fine motor skills in school -- such as their handwriting and ability to copy text -- will be significantly reduced. Invented by Bowhead Technology, Gululu ensures children stay hydrated by engaging them to care for a virtual pet. As kids drink more water from their Gululu interactive water bottle, their chosen virtual pet grows and makes friends. At the same time, Gululu keeps parents informed of their children's hydration progress through a connected smartphone app. Gululu Go is the latest introduction to the brand's innovative line and is smaller, lighter and easily portable. Most significantly, the company said, Gululu Go features a sound speaker, which allows the Gululu pets to talk to children for the first time, using over 200 phrases and different voices for the individual pet characters. After releasing more than 15 versions of the game and app since its global launch in October 2016, Gululu said it has developed an operational model of frequent content updates to keep users continuously engaged toward building a healthy habit. Every two to three weeks, Gululu introduces additional features, such as new thematic online campaigns, new drinking animations, new accessories for pets, new sound effects and new audio phrases, all pushed to the bottle through the cloud. Children can redeem the accessories for their pets with the virtual coins collected along their journey of discovering the Gululu Universe. A fourth character was released at the end of March and more characters are expected to come in order to expand the Gululu Universe. The multiple aspects of social interaction and UGC (user-generated content) are important to promote Gululu users' engagement and retention, the company said. Users have been invited or selected to co-create content such as drawing the pets' accessories and recording short voice stories for the "GBC News" online radio. Gululu now allows users to make friends by shaking bottles next to each other or on the app remotely, check the social leader board for the game progress, and send emoji animations to poke each other in the bottle. As of end of April 2018, more than 40 thousand units of Gululu have been shipped globally across 70 plus countries including the U.S., the Greater China region, Southeast Asia, Europe and other parts of the world. The most loyal users have been with Gululu for over 400 days. Over 30% of Gululu's users worldwide have made friends on the platform and their retention is significantly higher than those who don't have Gululu friends, the company said. Gululu Universe is becoming a center pillar to support the brand's product roadmap and the company is enhancing its patented IP by branching out into diverse formats such as WeChat emojis, its own music and songs, and preparing for animated short videos. On its quest and mission to perfect children's well-being, Bowhead Technology is also in the process of making several new products. Besides Gululu Go, the company is also researching the AI version of Gululu for the next generation, to enhance the human-machine interface and strengthen the user interaction. A non-bottle innovative product that addresses other healthy habits is also under way. The pre-sale for Gululu Go started May 24. Gululu Go can now be purchased for $119 at  www.gululugo.com .