Is it just a bottle of water?

A couple of years back, I came across a wonderful “advertisement”. Actually I was completely blown away when I came to know that it was an ad (I thought it might be a preview of Pixar’s version of Aquaman or something ;)).

I am talking about the Epica award-winning ad for Evian bottled water where kids sing the Queen’s “We will rock you” while water characters travel across the screen, in what is actually water.
This is a real proof of the extent to which creativity can be applied. Evian, which charges two to three times a standard bottled water, convinced the people that they can feel young in body and mind by drinking Evian every day. The Evian’s “water boy” became a symbol of youth and energy, and it was soon used across different media as Evian’s youth icon. Water boy is an interesting example of the how Evian transformed itself into a “Badge of Youthfulness”.

Equally interesting is the “Naive” campaign launched by Evian in Cape Town in the summer of 2005 which added the humanitarian look to the same company. Cape Town was facing an acute shortage of water that summer. Evian decided to use advertisements to raise the awareness of the issue. The agency staff running the campaign were out on the streets of Cape Town handing out water bottles to the commuters, but instead of Evian, they were labeled “Naive” (Evian spelt backwards) with a message below it to conserve water. The bottle label also had stats and figures on how the rainfall for the year were dropped as compared to last year and gave tips on how to wisely use water. The campaign got its share of press coverage and this immediately added the tag of a brand that “cares” to Evian in Cape Town and around the World.

Evian runs a series of print advertisements from time to time, to show different characteristics of the brand. Each ad communicates a message, a message of beauty or purity, a vision or a promise which goes on to add the strength of soul and character to the brand.

Evian, owned by France based Danone group, sells bottled water in more than 100 countries. Danone group is the world’s largest producer of bottled water (in terms of volume). It makes one think how do they do it? What are they actually selling? Is it just a bottle of water? No, absolutely not. They package youthfulness, energy, purity, humanity and well-being in a bottle, which also contains water!