How Valpre Water Encouraged Africans to Own Their Richness
As the Coca-Cola company launches its premium water brands across Africa, each market has its own visual identity and references which target specific sets of people. When it comes to Valpre, Keringet, and Voltic Water, the idea behind the brand – and the campaign which follows it – is to say to Africans, ‘Own Your Richness’.
Created by FORT and the team at FCB Joburg, the campaign comes away idea of monetary ‘richness’, focusing instead on creative, cultural and individual richness, showcasing a flavour of Africa that is different from most other campaigns. The campaign’s director and FORT’s co-founder, Amr Singh, explains that he wanted to create an entirely different visual identity for this project. Focusing on the elements of water which run through the campaign and creating most of the ad within studio, it feels like a different take on Africa – one which is futuristic and has a style of its own.
Using the sound of water droplets to create the backing track, with designers from Africa styling the entire process and with a focus on conveying the unique identity of the brand, this spot feels unique, yet boldly African, all while keeping with the aesthetic of the Premium Water brands.
Amr speaks to LBB’s Nisna Mahtani about his vision for the campaign, incorporating influential figures and even using AI to bring a current, yet futuristic feel to the spot.
[Director's cut]
LBB> Where did the idea behind the Valpre Water campaign begin? What were the initial conversations you had with the client?
Amr> By the time I jumped on as director, the agency and client had lived with it for quite a long time. From what I saw and heard, there wasn’t a definitive creative execution that everyone was aligned with. By the time I presented my treatment, the challenge was to create a campaign which integrated the influential figures they found. After all, they had found different voices across Africa for all the different premium waters they have, which meant this was no small task
The main idea was to capture the sentiment of ‘Owning Your Richness’ – which is a double entendre as the water is coming out of Africa, so it’s the actual mineral richness of Africa itself. At the same time, it’s presenting characters and the metaphorical richness they all have in their own ways. It was meant to be a very African spot, which tends to have a particular aesthetic attached to it which is colourful, energetic and dynamic, but at the same time grungy, showing the clash between African creativity and African infrastructure.
We wanted to step away from that and represent things in a slightly different way. We went for a blue, very geometric, clean African aesthetic. I tried to create a visual style which connected the dots amongst all of those things. At the same time, I wanted water to be a visual motif.
LBB> What were some of the techniques you used to create this futuristic, colourful and African feeling campaign?
Amr> We wanted to create a world which was more metaphorical and representative of each person’s creative pursuits, as opposed to literal representations. I was quite interested in exploring what we could do in the studio, which would be the furthest thing from the environments in which they actually excel, and then trying to create a very loose narrative arc.
We used phrases such as ‘owning your art’, ‘owning your skin’, ‘owning your style.’ These phrases are defined by self-expression, so we wanted to interpret this in a unique way by having influential figures say them. It started with the script, then a rough idea of a three-act narrative which started with the water source, then the droplets, and then the visual identity of the brand.
LBB> Can you talk us through the process of creating the water elements within the piece?
Amr> We decided we were going to make an immersive world and started designing the sets, doing conceptual drawings and pre-visualisations of the set. It started to present a tonality and that had to flow through quite a few things, such as the performance. The influential figures are not actors, so making them perform in a way that felt natural was an interesting task..
The other aspect was the styling, and we had a great stylist on set. In an African context, it’s quite easy to do this, as we have an unconventional style which can be seen as atypical to Western sensibility. So for us, it was an easy fit.
LBB> How did the client find the influential figures they wanted to feature in the campaign?
Amr> They were looking for individuals who had that sense of richness – not in a monetary sense, but that unique, innate quality that makes them special. That identity. The characters clearly represented that and were open to the concept we presented.
I had quite a large treatment for this because it was difficult to convey what I thought in my head and articulate that. I think some of the team thought it was too dark or too moody, especially for African creativity, but the characters really bought into it, which is a huge plus, as it settled everyone's nerves.
Also, if you pause the piece, you can see that there are AI images behind each character which represents what they do. We created this with Midjourney, and they’re very curated images that present various moments.
LBB> How long did the editing process for this piece take? Was there anything which you were keen to include?
Amr> It was an interesting process because we wanted the water elements to breathe, which meant we wanted it to come in at quite a gentle pace. However, we knew that once we landed on the music, we wanted to match the cadence of the soundtrack. There are a few match cuts - such as at the end when we’re going through the tunnel - where we wanted the triangular shapes to match the shapes on the logo. So, there were a few things we knew we wanted to create going into the edit, but other than that, it was an organic process.
The music for the piece is made up of the sound of water dropping. If you watch it, there’s an authenticity to the product as the sound of water dropping gets pitched down and played at different notes – and that becomes the music for the piece.
LBB> What has the response to the campaign been like?
Amr> The client’s response has been very positive. The OOH campaigns are all over Johannesburg, the shorter videos have been shared, and the longer version has recently been released, which you can see now!
