Beach Blaster
Issue 16 | September 2010
Agency
George Patterson Young & Rubicam Melbourne
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Ben Coulson; Creatives: Matt Lawson/ Frances Webb
Other Credits
Group Communications Director: Mat Cummings; Account Director: Elaine Pow; Account Manager: Damien Miller
Date
December 2009
Background
The strategy of the campaign was to create a brand experience that ‘makes water fun’ and which would bring existing and new customers together during the summer.
Idea
The solution was to transform the plastic Cottee’s Cordial bottle into a pump-action water blaster. Purchase four bottles of cordial and you got the Blaster unit free. It made water fun and got kids interacting with the brand all summer long. It culminated in the Cottee’s Beach Blast Off, a nationwide water fight held in every state of Australia.
Results
All 12,000 Cottee’s Beach Blasters were redeemed in the first two weeks. This created a 27% increase in sales. Production could not meet demand and Australia ran out of Cottee’s Cordial.
Our Thoughts
Am I the only person to be worried by the increasing importance in the creative brief of ‘the consumer insight’?
I believe insights are rare as five-legged dogs and when you have one, it is a revelation of such proportions it changes everything you had ever believed up until that moment. (When Jon Steele suggested to us one day at BMP that milk was not actually a drink but a food, for instance.)
Looking at this idea, I can’t help wondering if ‘Have fun with water’ was a thought in the original brief or, as I hope, a post-rationalisation of the creative leap.
I believe the best ideas are always insightful. But that is not the same thing at all as saying you have to have an insight to have a brilliant idea.