Vita Coco
Stupidly Simple
Bringing simplicity back.
What We Did:
Analog • Branding • Digital • Experiential • Motion & Photography • Social
Overview
We helped Vita Coco make “simple” look easy.
Ten years after it debuted coconut water in the United States, Vita Coco was the marketplace leader by far—but it was far from alone.
With Stupidly Simple, Vita Coco wanted to slice through the static that had cropped up around coconut water (and everywhere else in our lives) and reach a new audience in the process.
They had a tagline and a target. Together, we took care of the rest.
Campaign Branding & Visuals
To carry the bold Stupidly Simple message, we translated the foundational Vita Coco aesthetic from watercolor washes to saturated solids and cleaner lines. We created hero illustrations that said “simplicity” at a glance and graduated our proprietary Bushwick Beach typeface to clean-cut caps.
Stemming from the campaign hero line “Our plant is a plant,” our pipe-and-spigot key art brought to life Vita Coco’s ultrashort journey from tree to Tetra Pak.
Campaign Messaging
The key to messaging Stupidly Simple: truisms so true, they’d blow your mind a little. That called for startlingly straightforward, hybrid functional-educational lines that could walk a fine line: audacious, but not aggressive.
Out of Home
We launched Stupidly Simple with installs in key markets nationwide, from high-traffic corner dominations in LA to a total MTA station domination in NYC’s Union Square. We complemented those hero placements with supporting players like kiosks and vehicle wraps. Everything was clean, clear, and simply couldn’t be missed.
Digital
A large portion of the Stupidly Simple spend was invested in digital exposure, including everything from context-specific banner ads to at-pump advertising at gas stations in key markets, where and when people were apt to run in for a cold drink.
We delivered on in-store sales goals through an ultra-simple sweepstakes: purchase, enter the code, and tell us why a little private island time is a must.
Experiential
We’re big fans of experiential, and we knew we wanted to really immerse people in our campaign worldview. With Simplivision, our VR digital activation, we gave people instant virtual access to 360° of flawless tropical beach, right there on the spot.
Bringing Simplivision to life was a multi-city feat. We shot beach footage on location in St. John, stitched it together in Brooklyn, and loaded it into a dozen Google Cardboard-rigged tower opticals for events all across the country.
Custom-made tower opticals + Google Cardboard + insanely beautiful beach footage = Simplivision
Social
Stupidly Simple was right at home on social. We hacked hacks to create even simpler hacks and shared recipes so simple, they didn’t need any actual measurements. We even had fun with ideas that were too stupidly simple to fly (even for us) through our Rejected Billboards micro campaign.
Just because you can put it on a billboard doesn’t mean you should. Thanks to a little designerly magic and a meme-hungry target audience, we were able to “run” adventurously off-color ads in a low-risk environment.
Results
We made it easy for people to choose Vita Coco.
Stupidly Simple drew hundreds of thousands of clicks online, dominated New York City’s Union Square Station, connected Vita Coco with hundreds of millions in (and beyond) its target market, and—best of all—quenched people’s thirst for a simpler life without fuss or fanfare.
874MM
Campaign impressions, May-August 2015
1
Hurricanes we sat through to get the perfect Simplivision footage
30%+
Same-store sales lift in NYC alone, Summer 2015
