As a commodity product, Aquafina water is difficult to market. With few differentiable attributes from direct competitors, no significant value-added benefit over tap or jug water, and an ever increasing array of indirect competitors in the beverage industry from carbonated sodas to energy drinks, Aquafina faces an considerable challenge in developing a sustainable positioning strategy. In addition, Aquafina's innovations of flavored, carbonated and vitamin-enhanced sub-brands present unique selling propositions that cannot be capitalized on so long as the masterbrand fails to capture a strong, differentiated position in consumers' minds.
Consequently, our team's goal was to design, create, and present our vision of 2008 Aquafina's integrated marketing communications strategy given a $75 million budget. We were required to determine appropriate budget allocation for various marketing communications vehicles (print, TV, radio, out-of-home, online, buzz, etc.), justify our strategy quantatively and qualitatively, and finally create a few ad executions for this strategy.
In formulating our overall unified strategy, our team began by first thoroughly understanding Aquafina's position within the current water industry landscape, looking at product offerings and attributes, target audience demographics, market share data, and existing campaigns. We then analyzed Aquafina's position in comparison from other leading competitors (e.g. Nestle and Dasani) as well as newcomers (e.g. Galcaeu's Vitamin Water). Additionally, we drew creative inspiration from the successful campaigns like that of Budweiser beer.
