Situation

Rivella is the most popular Swiss soft drink and has always been firmly rooted in the mountains. However, the image of the brand slowly gathered dust over the years. Especially young people do not perceive Rivella as a cool and innovative brand.

Brief

Spark enthusiasm for the traditional product amongst the young target group in the hiking season – and prove that Rivella is still highly innovative to this day, in spite of all tradition.

Objectives

The main objective was to create a new brand experience, which attracts the young target audience. The idea should also reinforce interaction between the target group and the brand.

We did not just want to tell our target audience about Rivella’s innovativeness. We wanted to provide physical evidence. Therefore, we partnered with the Swiss iconic Brand SIGG and created the «Unlimited Bottle»: a special aluminium drinking bottle. It comes along with the awarded design of the 0.6l Traveller bottle from SIGG, which is permanently displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But what really sets the «Unlimited Bottle» apart is its unique feature: All bottle owners are entitled to an unlimited amount of free Rivella refills throughout Switzerland. Furthermore, owners of the bottle benefit from free cable railway rides in more than 20 Swiss mountain regions – also unlimited. To increase the desirability of the bottle and to trigger action within the target group the «Unlimited Bottle» could not be bought, but only be won in a national On-Pack-Promotion. The campaign was advertised on Social Media.

Our target audience is quite young (aged 18-35 years) with an urban background, that maintains an active lifestyle and is fond of outdoor activities. The problem: They mainly associate Rivella with their past, when they drank Rivella on hiking vacations with their parents. For them Rivella is a part of their childhood, but they are not very likely to buy Rivella these days, when hiking in the mountains. That is why our approach was to create buzz around Rivella and to come up with an idea, that portrays the brand as cool and innovative. By doing this, we wanted to show young people that Rivella is not an archaic product from their past. At the same time, we wanted to bring the audience in contact with the product to reestablish a connection and prove that Rivella is a great soft drink to this day.

We created the «Unlimited Bottle» and announced it via Facebook and Instagram. The bottle could only be won in a national On-Pack-Promotion. Every casual Rivella Bottle came with a prize code in its bottle cap. After buying a bottle of Rivella the customers could enter the code on a website and – if they were lucky – win an «Unlimited Bottle». The whole promotion was advertised on Social Media (Facebook and Instagram) during eight weeks from the end of August until Mid-October. The ads explained the special features of the «Unlimited Bottle» and gave users advice on the best hiking regions. Additionally, the promotion was featured at the point-of-sale. Last but not least the happy winners shared their experiences with their bottles on social media – and spread the message of the unlimited refills.

The campaign was extremely successful. Within the first three weeks 10 million media impressions were achieved. The unique reach was more than 1 million. That means the message of the «Unlimited Bottle» was widely spread amongst our target group and created an extremely strong impact. The engagement rate amounted to 25.8 %, which proves that the idea really hit a nerve. Within the first three weeks outrageous 71.205 contest participations could be enregistered. And since the target audience kept spreading the message, even more followed. Looking at all positive comments and the big involvement the campaign created, we draw the conclusion, that the «Unlimited Bottle» strongly contributes to the new and more positive perception of Rivella amongst the young target group.