Italian water label makes a splash with a risque push

The Italian brand of pure mountain spring water, which is the chosen water of the AC Milan football team, is making its first foray into Asia.

Maniva and its advertising agency PI2 decided a risque approach was needed as the brand only had a small budget to do battle with major competitors such as Evian and Highland Spring at the top end of the market and Ice Mountain in the middle segment.

Paul Russell, PI2 managing director, said: "We needed something that would cut through the clutter and get people talking about the brand. The client has a low media budget and so we needed a creative that was highly impactful. We offered the client two choices but they rather boldly went for the more risque route."

However, he said that the 'Michelle' execution - suggesting a threesome - was originally banned by the Singapore Bus Service and the Today newspaper because it was too provocative.

The ad was eventually aired after "we spent a lot of time cajoling the companies and made some slight alterations, choosing a pose that was less suggestive than our original proposal", Russell said.

The ads are also featured on Zo Cards, postcards which are given away at cafes and tourist spots. Maniva - whose main attribute is that it is a healthy drink because of its low nitrate and sodium content - is positioned as the pure nature of water, underlined by the headline 'How pure are you'. It also has a premium European look to try to set it apart from other bottled waters in the market.

The brand is priced slightly below Evian and is distributed via NTUC and Cold Storage retail outlets.

The city is Maniva's first port of call in Asia and Russell said that "if it goes well in Singapore then the distributor (Consumer One) may go to other markets in Asia".