Evian's babies are back, and they look more familiar than usual.
The infants, introduced by BETC Paris in 1998 with the beloved French spot "Water Babies," and made famous a decade later by the global "Roller Babies" spot (one of the most-watched ads ever on YouTube), return this week with the film below, called "Baby & Me." Once again, they represent your gleeful inner child, but this time they want to dance with you.
The agency's executive creative director, Rémi Babinet, spoke to Adweek about how the new campaign came about. "With 'Baby & Me,' the brand seeks to stay fresh by renewing the 'Live Young' concept of the preceding work," he says. "In the last campaign, 'Baby Inside,' we used a simple creative mechanism, a T-shirt, to bring to life the baby inside all of us. With 'Baby & Me', the adult and baby selves actually meet for the first time."
The spot, filmed in Buenos Aires and Paris, features adults and kids who were cast because they looked like each other. From there, thanks to some CGI, they mirror each other's dance moves.
Agency and client both pointed out that the babies aren't just an advertising gimmick. They're rooted in the brand's history. "The babies are true to our story and heritage," Laurent Houel, global brand director for Evian, tells Adweek. "The love affair of the brand with babies started in France in 1935, when Evian was first recommended as a perfect water for babies. It is still today the No. 1 water used by mothers for their babies [thanks to its pH-neutral mineral composition]. So fundamentally, there is a true link, it is not a marketing trick."
Houel adds: "BETC had the idea to go beyond this, and leverage the babies into a powerful symbol of purity and youth. This baby is a symbol of you and how you feel when you experience Evian, and a symbol of the purity of our water."
The music on the new spot is Ini Kamoze's "Here Comes the Hotstepper," remixed by French electro artist Yuksek.
Besides the film, the campaign will include an outdoor campaign that will bring the baby-and-adult mirrored-dancing concept to life on digital posters. (Look for cameos by tennis champion Maria Sharapova and the golfer Melissa Reid.) There will also be an app that allows you to "babify" yourself thanks to facial recognition software.
CREDITS
Client: Evian
Brand Management: Michael Aidan, Laurent Houel, Cécile Turkel, Alexis Thobellem, Benoit Radenne
Agency: BETC, Paris
Agency Management: Marielle Durandet, Estelle Colas, Gaelle Gicqueau, Isabelle Picot, Charlotte Bals
Executive Creative Director: Rémi Babinet
Art Director: Agnès Cavard
Assistant Art Director: Félix Falzon
Copywriter: Valérie Chidlovsky
Traffic: Elise Herfort
Media Strategy Director: Martine Picard
Media Agency: Havas Media International
TV Producer: Fabrice Brovelli
Production Company: Iconoclast
Directors: We Are From LA
Music: BETC Music
Music Creative Director: Christophe Caurret
Music Production: Gum
Track/Artist: "Home Come the Hotstepper," Yuksek
Rights Negotiation: Catherine Philippe
Media Plan
International campaign: TV, cinema, web, points of sale and events (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan)
PRINT
Photographer: Benni Valsson
Art Buyer: Nathalie Gruselle
Production: RITA Production / Isabelle Severi
Print Producers: Sarah Belhadj, Annick Audoux
DIGITAL OUTDOOR
Agency Management: Karine Dargeou, Stéphanie Mayer, Jonathan Casseron
Creative Director: Ivan Beczkowski
Art Director: Sokphea Pes
Copywriter: Emmanuelle Labbe
Technology Thibault Dargeou