“WATER IS brilliant,” declares the voiceover on the new “Drink It In” Ballygowan television advertisement, which hits screens today as part of an €850,000 campaign by Britvic Ireland to relaunch the 30-year-old brand for a younger age group.
The 30-second advertisement, which shows a group of healthy, shiny-haired urbanites messing about exuberantly in an “aquagraphics” water feature in Dublin’s Meeting House Square, was created for Britvic by Cawley Nea and is soundtracked by the Co Down band Kowalski.
Ballygowan is still the market leader in bottled water in Ireland, though it has been under pressure in the retail channel of late, and the campaign is designed to help reverse slippage in its market share.
New packaging and a cleaner “B” logo have been introduced as part of the all-round aesthetic refresh.
“Ballygowan is a strong brand with the generation that first bought into bottled water, but it lost that connection with younger people,” says Leonie Doyle, head of marketing for local brands at Britvic Ireland.
The bottled water category has not been alone in battling with recession, she points out. “I don’t think you’ll find a [fast-moving consumer goods] brand that will say it hasn’t been a difficult market in the last three years.”
The media planning and buying for the campaign, which encompasses TV, radio and digital and runs until early June, was managed by OMD, though Britvic Ireland, which bought the Ballygowan brand from CC in 2007, has since moved its future media buying to the WPP-owned Group M.
Britvic’s portfolio also includes 7Up, Cidona, TK and Club – recently the subject of a market repositioning of its own. As advertising messages go, “water is brilliant” is unlikely to attract any of the controversy generated by last year’s breast-led “Best Bits” campaign for Club Orange.
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