S’well: From beautiful product to formidable brand
OBJECTIVE: raise awareness of S’well.
CHALLENGE: a victim of its own success, S’well needed to protects its margins in the face of increased competition from cheaper copycats.
CRACKING IT: Instead of focusing on S’well’s impressive but replicable performance (keeping contents cold for 24 hours or hot for 12) we set out to insulating it from rational considerations by making it an object of Desire. We knew from our experience with luxury where to look. Chaco studied the semiotics of desire: how it is elicited and perpetuated in personal relationships as well as between people and brands. This is how we identified Magic, that non-linear, almost surreal experience, as the key ingredient of desire. (when a couple says “the magic is gone” we all know what that means)
SOLUTION: We established Magic as the strategic direction, allowing the brand to explore non-linear storytelling, giving birth to a body of work including the films below and doubling down on its partnerships with artists in New York and elsewhere.
But great content needs great distribution: so Chaco planned, negotiated and purchased the media on behalf of S’well, running the film on Popsugar.com and supporting it with native, branded content throughout the publication.
RESULTS: awareness grew by over 1,000% (source: Nielsen’s Vizu), Completion and Click Through Rates over 50% above benchmarks (source: Google’s DCP), achieved over 10M impressions (source: Popsugar.com).
