Snowman goes to the desert

Panasonic's SPARKS team tests out the company's various “eco-technologies.” When they received a Facebook message from a Bahraini girl named Amna who wanted to show her brother Saleh snow for the first time, the proverbial “sparks” started flying.

Sure, they could ship a snowman in a refrigerated case – but that would be too easy. Instead, they sent it in a standard cardboard box, and thanks to a new Panasonic vacuum sealing technology, Frosty arrived in finely frozen form.

The snowman was fully assembled in the mountains of Japan, complete with carrot nose. The Panasonic team loaded it into the box, sealed it with their U-Vacua insulation panels that decompress to keep out all heat, and popped it on a plane to Bahrain for a 5,300-mile journey.

Dozens of kids came to greet the snowman in the sweltering, sunny desert, and after a few snapshots with the foreign visitor, the kids couldn't resist digging into ol' Frosty for a snowball fight.

The paper-thin vacuum panels are impressive, appearing to add very little in size or weight to the original box. And they clearly kept the snowman chilly enough throughout the 40-hour trip. If only he could have lasted that long out of the box.