Campaign Trail is our evaluation of a few of the finest new inventive efforts from the advertising world. View previous columns within the archives right here.
As the world has reopened — albeit in suits and begins — customers have returned en masse to pre-pandemic actions that take them out of the home, particularly as working from house and social distancing have remained features of every day life. But this summer time, the world customers have returned to has been roiled by a warmth wave that has unfold throughout the globe, making hydration an more and more vital a part of the equation.
For these wanting past water for their hydration wants, the market is heavy with useful drinks whose very class identify — sports activities drinks — ties their electrolyte-replacing energy with athletics and the athletes that energy their advert campaigns.
Liquid I.V., a Unilever-owned wellness model that makes a speciality of powdered electrolyte drink mixes, needed to announce its model profit and educate customers about hydration with its first absolutely built-in nationwide marketing campaign, “Fuel Your Play.” The marketing campaign — powered by a $20 million advert purchase — seeks to discover what the model considers a white house available in the market: the concept of play, in all its varieties.
Before launching the marketing campaign, Liquid I.V. started with shopper analysis and located two main factors — the hyperlink between hydration and high-intensity sports activities competitors had been well-established available in the market, and customers had returned to hobbies and outside actions — whose disconnect created a gap for the model.
“Consumers felt that this high-intensity sports activities house was not super-relatable to their lives — they have been way more into on a regular basis actions — the skating, the climbing, the hanging out with buddies by the pool — that basically is what they think about their lively life-style,” stated Stacey Andrade, vp of selling for Liquid I.V. “For us, it actually opened up this chance to discuss hydration in a unique and new method that isn’t being performed within the market.”
Play in L.A.
The model turned to inventive studio SixTwentySix to assist craft its digital video business, a 30-second spot that’s alive with exercise — a dance crew on the street, a father taking part in with youngsters, individuals skateboarding and diving right into a lake — that transfer seamlessly with intelligent transitions and shares a pair essential statistics across the model’s worth proposition. The firm used Liquid I.V.’s analysis and transient as a leaping off level.
“We got here to the belief that folks have a look at hydration reactively, and we needed to present it in a cool, playful method, the place it is extra of a proactive factor, the place it is not just about competitors and sports activities,” stated Jake Krask, co-founder and managing director at SixTwentySix. “It’s extra like just having enjoyable day by day, utilizing the actual advantages of hydration to absolutely embody your self and no matter you actually take pleasure in doing to get the total advantages out of it.”
Amid the corporate’s marketing campaign proposals was one with a “West Coast, Los Angeles vibe” that targeted on outside actions that felt probably the most sincere and relatable to the model. That pitch was an apparent winner for an organization based and based mostly in El Segundo, California, in Los Angeles county.
“There was one thing very genuine about staying true to our roots and actually putting this advert in Los Angeles. We have been very intentional about discovering these places, these communities, these tales that felt very genuine to L.A.,” Andrade stated.
To absolutely embrace the heartbeat of Los Angeles, one marketing campaign vignette options skate boarders on the iconic Venice Beach skatepark. The opening and shutting vignette options an L.A.-based dance group, The Council, that payments itself as an “all-female empowerment collective.” Along with offering actually Angeleno taste, the vignettes underscore the model’s wide selection of potential clients — an inclusive edge vital to interact with its Gen Z and millennial target market.
“We actually needed to present this number of completely different utilization events, completely different actions, completely different places, and likewise completely different customers,” Andrade stated. “There’s completely different ages, ethnicities — hydration is one thing that’s extremely common — so we needed that to additionally come by the entire decisions that we made creatively all through the spot.”
A $20 million effort
Liquid I.V. was based in 2012 and bought by Unilever in 2020. Historically, the model has invested in influencer and efficiency advertising, establishing a robust presence within the digital house. “Fuel Your Play” is the model’s first-ever 360-degree nationwide model marketing campaign.
“This was a possibility for us to actually layer on a few of these prime of funnel advertising approaches to actually drive attain and consciousness behind our model,” Andrade stated.
The marketing campaign will likely be powered by a $20 million advert purchase, with the video spot operating throughout YouTube and over-the-top channels together with Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+. Liquid I.V. can even proceed to depend on influencer advertising, rolling out a “Pass the Pack” effort the place influencers share a pastime and clarify how hydration helps them take pleasure in and carry out the exercise, earlier than passing the torch to one other influencer who will do the identical.
Aside from video and influencer content material, the marketing campaign will embrace a “significant” out-of-home purchase throughout golf programs, native transit, health club screens and Los Angeles locales that may enable the model to meet customers the place they’re truly taking part in and being lively. In form, the model will run its first main nationwide sampling tour, touring this summer time to states which have the very best temperatures.
“Sampling has at all times been on the cornerstone of our advertising technique,” Andrade stated. “We name it ‘getting sticks in arms,’ as a result of we all know that after you attempt it, you’ll like it.”
https://www.marketingdive.com/information/campaign-trail-liquid-iv-fuels-play-hydration/629461/
