Highland Spring was a respected but taken for granted brand. Its users were loyal, but getting older, younger people didn’t readily think about it, and the foreign giants were outspending it.
We believed it was time to beef up its presence and re-establish its relevance for today.
We decided to show off the bottle in all its pristine (not to mention tartan) glory, making it the hero of the campaign. The line ‘Clearly Perfect’ evoked the purity of water, and was linked in each execution with a different benefit.
Our first campaign began the process of modernising the brand and making it relevant for a wider and younger audience. Indeed, Highland Spring displaced Volvic as the number 2 bottled water brand in the UK.
Now the task was to build on those foundations and make a bolder statement.
Now the task was to build on those foundations and make a bolder statement. Recognising that it is Highland Spring’s Scottish-ness that gives people permission to believe in its ‘superior’ quality, we explored in research how we might best capitalise on this. We learned that Scottish-ness enables the brand to be perceived as the most pure, fresh, and natural of all bottled waters – which allows us to move beyond ‘hydration’ and claim the benefit of Replenishment.
Highland Spring replenishes you: it puts back what you need, and brings out parts of you that you may have forgotten all about.
Simple and powerful, our campaign showed people experiencing the benefits – emotional and physical – of Replenishment. The line, ‘Feel 100% Scottish water’, affirms Highland Spring as the Scottish mineral water while it communicates the ultimate benefits that only it can provide.
It was always part of our brand strategy to give Scottishness pride of place. In our latest work, we did just that, not only in our advertising but also in the label design. Dressed in its new clothes, Highland Spring can capitalise on the purity and naturalness of Scottish water in a modern tone of voice.
In our dramatic new TVcommercial we interpreted ‘Scottish-ness’ by telling the story of the journey of water, creating a roller-coaster ride through the Scottish landscape, following the turbulent course of a single drop of water, from clouds to land, then through rocks and caverns, to a source deep below the Ochil Hills in Perthshire.
Research shows that Highland Spring is now more top of mind than Evian.
