De-commoditizing the category
The opportunity: Rise above the barriers of a commoditized category, while addressing key headwinds the brand faced.
The challenges:
Bottled water was seen as a functional commodity.
Health concerns existed around the quality of the water.
There was white space to drive exciting new opportunities in water innovation.
Translating business challenges to comms objectives drove a marketing agenda with multiple initiatives:
Functional commodity: Drive an emotional connection
Developed the brand’s first ever global campaign, Undercomplicate, designed to bring the brand’s new positioning to life in a powerful way.
The results: The campaign tested strongly in all markets and was adopted by multiple countries.
Health concerns: Reassure product quality
The bottled water category and Aquafina brand were both facing quality perception issues. To combat them, consumers needed to trust both the quality of the water and the brand. Created a telegraphic integrated ad campaign to re-establish credibility and communicate trust by leveraging Interplay between a strong quantitative claim –the world’s #1 choice – and visual cues of water purity.
The results: A 50% decrease in negative sentiment and a 14% increase in volume.
New innovation: Flavored water
Flavor = fun = frequency
Aquafina wanted consumers who believed in the importance of water driven health but didn’t drink enough to drink more with a more fun option – Aquafina Flavor Splash. To drive awareness and preference, created a visually compelling product-centric campaign that tells the story of the brand through the lens of flavor and fun.
The results: Signed over 200 accounts in less than six months, more than any other PepsiCo product launch within the last five years. 90% of accounts hit the weekly sales threshold required to warrant continued sales.
