If you demand the best for your body, why should water be an exception?
The new North American campaign for Evian, led by Toronto-based Sharpe Blackmore Euro RSCG, features impressive photos of buff, pensive-looking models posing in the Alps. Copy reinforces the fact that Evian comes from this pristine source.
‘People know Evian is a premium bottle of water, but they don’t really know why,’ explains Ron Tite, VP/CD at Sharpe Blackmore. ‘The branding goal is to justify Evian as a premium product. There’s a strong educational component to it…. If you think of your body as a temple, you typically think of limiting alcohol intake and exercising. You don’t typically make that leap [to think of water purity].’ He describes the target as: ‘a little more urban, upper-scale, with higher incomes and education.’
The agency has been working on the campaign since last summer, trying to get all of the details just right, including securing photographer Russell James, who’s shot covers for the likes of GQ and Vogue – and nailing the perfect location in the Alps with a little help from its Paris counterpart, Euro RSCG BETC.
Tite says that positive feedback in focus groups helped his agency land the North American campaign this year, while the network head office, NYC-based Euro RSCG NY, will take the reins next year. ‘There was simultaneous work being done south of the border, here and in Europe. Different ideas were tested in the U.S. and here, and ours won,’ he says.
The campaign, which started rolling out in late May, was conceptualized as a print execution. In Canada it’s running in magazines like Toronto Life, Flare and Canadian House & Home. The U.S. did its media buy before the creative was done, so instead it’s running OOH executions including billboards and transit in core urban centres like New York, L.A. and Miami.
client: Michael Thouin, brand manager, Canada; Jeff Caswell, VP marketing, North America, Evian
agency: Sharpe Blackmore Euro RSCG, Toronto
ECD: Paul McClimond
CD/copywriter: Ron Tite
ADs: Stacey Hill, Mihail Nedkov
account executive: Elizabeth McGroarty
producer: Claire Beresford
photographer: Russell James
retouching: Taylor James
