Title	VOICE OF WATER
Brand	MORSHYNSKA
Product/Service	NATURAL WATER
Category	G05. Cultural Insight
Entrant	ISD GROUP Kiev, UKRAINE
Idea Creation	ISD GROUP Kiev, UKRAINE
Media Placement	HASHTAG Kiev, UKRAINE
PR	HASHTAG Kiev, UKRAINE
Production	ISD GROUP Kiev, UKRAINE
Production 2	HASHTAG Kiev, UKRAINE
Production 3	KA.KA.HA London, UNITED KINGDOM
Post Production	KA.KA.HA London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Natalia Revika	IDS Borjomi Ukraine	Marketing Director
Iryna Lopot	IDS Borjomi Ukraine	Marketing Manager
Evgenia Mikhaylenko	IDS Borjomi Ukraine	Brand Manager
Viktor Shkurba	[isdgroup]	Director of Creative Technology
Nataliya Tachinskaya	[isdgroup]	Art Director
Mikhael Traverse	KA.KA.HA	Co-founder, User Experience Director
JOACHIM BENTZ	KA.KA.HA	Managing Director
Eugene Golovatenko	[isdgroup]	Сreative Producer
Yuliia Ovcharenko	[isdgroup]	Copywriter
Svetlana Mironchuk	[isdgroup]	Account Director
Dariia Andriushchenko	[isdgroup]	Account Manager
Tania Liubchenko	[isdgroup]	Account Manager
Anna Shcherbinina	[isdgroup]	Designer
Katya Sotnichenko	[isdgroup]	Designer
Olga Varchenko	[isdgroup]	Designer
Diana Bondarenko	[isdgroup]	Designer
Nadia Lugovska	[isdgroup]	Designer
Julia Lybenska	[isdgroup]	Designer
Svetlana Taborskikh	[isdgroup]	Media Analytics
Kate Alimova	[isdgroup]	Media Analytics
Andrew Sergeev	KA.KA.HA	Technical Director
Alexander Savin	[isdgroup]	Technical Director

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Morshynska Voice of Water campaign let every Ukrainian experience natural water of Carpathians in a new unexpected way – through music. The whole new experience of brand and the product. The voice of Morshynska could be heard on radio, in music video, on the launching concert (that gathered 35000 people) and even through QR code on the bottles. The seemingly emotionless product you experience through taste gave every Ukrainian an opportunity to experience it with their ears. Communicating naturalness on a much deeper emotional level that let every Ukrainian rediscover their national identity through music created by Morshynska natural water.

Background

Morshynska is the leading brand of Ukrainian mineral water. Born in the wilderness of Carpathians' nature is has naturalness embedded into its DNA. After years of straightforward 'drink-water' marketing, the brand wanted to change its communication approach by telling Ukrainians about the naturalness of Morshynska. However, the ‘territory of naturalness’ among Ukrainian water brands is overcrowded. All of them want to be ‘natural’ and barely differ from each other. So we needed to stand out and to claim naturalness, making Morshynska water brand the most natural of all. In addition to that, Morshynska is the most popular water brand in Ukraine. Hence, its audience is ALL Ukrainians. So we needed our communication to be relevant to every Ukraine despite of where they live and what they do.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The image of the Carpathians combines three components: water, nature and the Ukrainian culture. Morshynska is born in the wilderness of the Carpathains' nature. And without nature there wouldn't be any authentic Ukrainian culture. That makes nature of the Carpathians both the source of water and Ukrainian culture itself. This way Morshynska water (seen at first glance as an understandable and emotionless product) appears to be the carrier of the Ukrainian cultural code. And Morshynska's bottle becomes a medium between Ukrainians and the identity they seek. So how could we communicate such a complex message to our audience? We realized that music would be the best medium here. After all, on a deeper level it allows us to feel and experience things that are so difficult to explain with words. Imagine music created by natural water. The voice of water that can be heard and felt by millions of Ukrainians.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

To discover the deeper level of naturalness we headed back to the Carpathians, the birthplace of Morshynska. Carpathians are also the cradle of true Ukrainian identity and authentic culture that finds its source of inspiration in nature. High in the Carpathians Ukrainian culture survived despite the Soviets’ attempts to flatten everything that is Ukrainian, to mock cultural heritage with ridiculous images of Ukrainians in film comedies and anecdotes. After 2014 new generations of Ukrainians became aware of themselves as UKRAINIANS and tried to find their own identity. That was a unique moment in Ukrainian history and Morshynska brand was the one to answer the call of the whole nation.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

To strengthen the voice of water we invited contemporary Ukrainian musicians to collaborate with it. Their music is inspired by nature and deeply rooted in the Ukrainian culture. ONUKA, Dakha Brakha, Katya Chilly, The Maneken – all these performers embody the new image of the Ukraine. The identity that Ukrainians felt after 2014. It took us a little less than a year. Together with music engineers and designers, we spent 2 months developing musical instruments that could be played by water. The references for instruments simply didn’t exist, so we had to create everything from scratch: prototyping, testing and designing each instrument. In the end, Carpathian water flows could play these instruments without any help from people. The music video was also shot in Carpathians. To present it to the audience and let everyone hear the voice of water we set up a concert right at Kontraktova Square in Kyiv.

List the results (30% of vote)

It was the first time in Ukrainian advertising that 35000 people came to see a campaign launch at an offline concert. They came to listen to the voice of water, but experienced a much deeper feeling – a sense of pride of being Ukrainians. Voice of Water music video got +16,500,000 views on YouTube. People commented that the video collaboration is not an ad for Morshynska, but an ad for modern Ukraine. +470,000 Ukrainians scanned QR on Morshynska's bottles and spent an average 2.39 minutes on the campaign website (230,742 hours in total) listening to the voice of water. This is an unprecedented result not only for Morshynska, but for Ukrainian advertising in general. That is how a bottle of water became an independent media channel. This is how Morshynska became a part of modern Ukrainian culture.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

The ‘territory of naturalness’ among Ukrainian water brands is overcrowded. All of them want to be ‘natural’ and barely differ from each other. All of them use the images of green fields, wild rivers and high mountains. But they are all missing the point. Naturalness for Ukrainians is sacred. Ukrainians have always found inspiration in nature and Ukrainian culture is literally saturated with it. Its traditions, spirits, fairy tales all have nature at the core. After the 2014 Revolution of Dignity Ukrainians got rid of the cultural inferiority complex imposed by the Soviet past and tried to rediscover what it's like to be Ukrainian. Millions of Ukrainians reopened national traditions, old customs and folk songs for themselves. They found their roots in Ukrainian culture. The one that has always been tied to nature. By appealing to nature through music Morshynska gave every Ukrainian feel pride for being Ukrainian.