Danone Waters of North America Inc., a subsidiary of French dairy giant Danone Group, has initiated its first online streaming video campaign for Evian, the leading premium water brand in the United States.
The series of 10-second spots will be embedded at the start of streaming video messages created by users on NBCi, theglobe.com and its uPublish partner sites, Homestead.com and iClips.com. The spots play before the user's video message runs, thus gaining a captive audience.
“We want to drive traffic to our site, get people more involved with our brand,” said Sean Perkins, promotions and Web manager at Danone, Pasadena, CA. “We want to get our brand involved in more of the lifestyle of our target audience.”
The Evian ads were placed by iClips Inc., a New York streaming video messaging company. Nuron, New York, created the spot.
The branding effort targets consumers age 15 to 29, Perkins said, and is one of a host of rich media promos planned for Evian this year.
“We've done cross promotions and advertising with other partners,” he said, “but this is the first time we've done something like this. … It seems to fit with our brand character and positioning and is an opportunity to try something else that's new to reach our target in a better way.”
Requiring RealPlayerG2 software, the Evian spot plays every time a consumer visits an iClips partner site to create a video message from a Webcam or video file.
So, for example, once the consumer visits the video area of the site at nbci.com, he can create an online video message. This clip can then be played on the site, e-mailed or simply added as a link on third-party sites.
“Whatever message you make, before the message plays first comes the Evian spot,” said Michael Diamant, CEO of iClips. “It's a video message in the video window.”
The Evian spot opens with a shot of the trademark snowcapped mountains associated with the French water brand. Screen by screen, it says, “Get to the Evian source … Win a trip to the French Alps … Where the slopes are hot … The spa is cool … and the refills are free … Evian.com … Where L'original lives.”
Next month, Evian will use iClips' video delivery system to send a promotional video that features Canadian singer Lisa Shaw. As Evian's spokeswoman this year, Shaw will deliver a short message about herself, Evian and Evian.com.
The Lisa Shaw spot will be sent via e-mail to Evian.com users who registered to receive updates.
Both spots will link users to www.evian.com. Live since late 1998, the site features information about Evian, contests and popular youth icons that are a fit with the brand's image.
Consumers cannot delete the Evian spot from the video message they create on the iClips partner sites.
“Evian pays us to advertise in the system, so the more people we can get to create messages, the more revenue we get,” iClips' Diamant said.
