Deep River Rock

BACKGROUND

“Emotional brand-building business effects should not be evaluated over a period of less than 6 months and ideally over at least 1 year”.

The Long and the Short of it, Binet & Field, 2013

We’ve taken the authors of this seminal study at their word. Our case study presents the evidence for advertising’s crucial role in the delivery of an emotional brand-building business effect – one that we’ve evaluated over not just one year, but ten.

In keeping with Binet and Field’s findings regarding the much greater value that long-term campaigns generate vis-a-vis short-term ones, we will show that it was by continual investment in (i) share-of-voice and in (ii) the ‘emotional priming’ of our target market that Deep RiverRock reached its goal of being No.1 for value and volume.

In doing so, we grew a fan base of 18-35-year-olds who…

  • Ranked Deep RiverRock more highly on statements such as ‘the choice of young people’, ‘suits modern lifestyles’ and ‘is a cool, hip, trendy water’ for the six years that the brand did competitive tracking.
  • Ranked Deep RiverRock advertising more highly on descriptors such as ‘amusing’, ‘imaginative’ and ‘most appealing advertising’ during this time.

Indeed, Deep RiverRock’s advertising trumped that of its largest competitor, Ballygowan, in effective cut-through for 10 years straight.

We will show that we were able to make precise calculations as to the level of investment required to reach our No.1 goal. Alas, we will also show that failure to invest in share-of-voice reversed our brand-building efforts.

This is a story about building an emotive brand for the long-term. It proves that a brand that’s focused on being different to the competition and relevant to the audience over the years will continue to grow in value, given the appropriate investment.

READ THE FULL CASE STUDY BELOW