Task
Buxton had long been associated with the England cricket team but for their new campaign they wanted to hero up and coming England batsman, Alastair Cook. Cook was unknown at the time to the wider public. The challenge was make the creative appealing and memorable whether you knew Alastair or not.
My Solution
The opportunity came in as a pitch. With Buxton's past associations with Stephen Fry exuding English quirkiness and humour (something the client wanted to retain) I came up the campaign - ‘It’s just not cricket... will someone please tell Alistair’. The creative depicted Alastair with his cricket gear on whilst undertaking other sports - complete madness! The idea being that the campaign would be memorable even if some of the audience were not familiar with the cricketer. The client loved the idea and the pitch was in the bag!
The campaign was rolled out across OOH and various publications. Supermarket and retailer stores supported the campaign with on-pack promotions featuring a tie in with Jaguar cars with a win mechanic devised and written by myself that promoted the provenance of the water.
The best bit for me was meeting and art directing Alastair, who was a great sport - I even got to play catch with a bottle of water with him!
The second time I had a photo shoot with Alastair was a few months later after he had returned from The Ashes Test in Australia. Now a fully fledged cricket star and a household name, his face instantly recognisable and a fantastic bonus for Buxton Water.
The text to win promotion enjoyed a 212% increase in redemption in comparison to Buxton's previous campaign.
Credit: Cygnus