One in three water users in France do not wear a floatation vest. Our client, Tribord, makes good, affordable floatation vests. To communicate this, we launched a secondary product : a drink, filled with 100% salt water, designed to give people a taste of drowning.

During the operation, sales of the vest increased by 130%, and after the operation stabilized at a 22% increase.

Our media was the fake drink can. All the information was there. The message : make this your last taste of drowning. There was also a reduction coupon printed on the can. People could take the empty can into the store and get a 30% reduction.

These kind of long time water users don’t like people telling them to wear a life vest. So the idea was to catch their attention with the fake drink. We targeted users around the water, on beaches and marinas. In each location, a street team would first hand out the drinks, and then demonstrate the life jackets.