How To
Storytelling in Non-alcoholic Beverage Advertising
Not long ago, I’ve written about story themes that are quite common in alcohol advertising. However storytelling is no exception in ads for non-alcoholic drinks. Here I further discuss a few themes that can be noticed throughout the years of non-alcoholic beverage (including drinkable water) advertising.
Cuteness overload
Well maybe not overload but still, it is quite popular to use babies, puppies and other lovely creatures in advertising. You might think that this is an easy approach, since everyone’s heart would melt by seeing them anyway. However it can still get creative, just like in this cute and entertaining ad from Evian:
Happiness
There were a few other beverage brands whose stories somewhat related to happiness, however Coca Cola is probably the best at delivering it. It has been building on this theme for many years now and still manages to come up with something new and engaging. Watching their ads really brings some happiness into one’s life. And since a few years ago Coca Cola started making many different cases and telling stories about them, this is no longer just advertising, it’s telling and showing stories how they actually made people happy. Here is one of many great examples how Coca Cola made Denmark an even happier place to be:
Let’s educate you a little
Educational theme is usually used when brand owners want to make a point about the ingredients they use, their product’s value to one’s health and wellbeing etc. Since this is a rather boring piece of information they want to share, good storytelling helps getting the right message through without directly lecturing the target about some awesome ingredients they have never heard of. This educational theme is also quite common among premium water brands that want to explain why one should pay more for a bottle of their water. One of the ways to educate is through breathtaking views that somehow relate to one’s product. Not sure if I am going to purchase some water after watching this, however I would definitely go for a vacation to Fiji, where it comes from:
Sports
It is a popular theme throughout advertising of many different products and non-alcoholic beverages are not an exception. Sports-related ads are obviously more common for sports drinks, however there are numerous examples of this theme in advertising of water, energy drinks and other types of beverages. I believe Red Bull created some of the greatest stories featuring extreme sports. Pretty much all of them were engaging even for the ones who neither do sports nor drink Red Bull. Here is one of the greatest examples about the record-breaking free fall from space:
Persistence is the key
This is strongly related to the previous one, since athletes are often at the center of such stories. However they are not the only ones, therefore I decided to separate the two. This theme is about the importance of not giving up and persistently striving for one’s goals. This is a lot about enhancing motivation which many of us lack sometimes when things do not go the way we expected. Here is a story about tennis player Serena Williams in one of the inspiring spots from Gatorade:
Great stories inspire great creativity. I hope the above was a boost for yours.
Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog
