Dwayne Johnson faces off against Jason Momoa, Will Smith—and Gwyneth Paltrow?—in the bottled water wars with new Voss deal
Dwayne Johnson has added to his laundry list of career titles—wrestler, actor, producer, shoe and apparel designer—by taking an ownership stake in Voss Water, also becoming that brand’s first celebrity endorser.
Voss is a Norway-based water brand, known primarily for its unique cylindrical bottle design. Johnson has apparently been a consumer of the brand for years, but he will now be a strategic adviser as the brand expands into new international territories, including China, as well as new product categories, packaging, and platforms. The first products from this partnership will be a range of functional offerings planned for launch in early 2020.
“I’m thrilled to have evolved my genuine passion for Voss into a formal business investment and work with their exceptional leadership team, to create new products and develop strategic brand initiatives and collaborations,” Johnson said in a statement. “We are going to build great things together.”
Johnson will star in a new brand campaign launching August 5 called “Live Every Drop,” which will be created by Johnson’s own Seven Bucks Creative agency. The brand says the campaign will feature behind-the-scenes looks at how Johnson puts in the work to defy limits every day. “As a brand, Voss has been very thoughtful about its growth strategy to date, favoring organic, micropartnerships rather than anything on a global scale,” says Voss’s global director of marketing, Ariel Boorstin. “Given the seismic shifts in the bottled-water category, and the maturity of Voss in many markets, the timing was finally right to explore a partnership of this magnitude.”
As celebrity pitchmen go, Johnson is one of the most enthusiastic and effective. His Project Rock collection with Under Armour routinely sells out, and his work with brands like Apple and Ford in years past demanded immediate global attention. Part of that is simply by virtue of being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, but it’s also pushed by Johnson’s prodigious stream of social media to more than 151 million followers on Instagram alone.
The bottled-water market is not only flooded (sorry) with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow for Flow, Will and Jaden Smith for Just Water, and Jason Momoa’s Mananalu brand. It’s also been rapidly expanding the number of functional options like electrolytes, protein, fiber, CBD, and more. Having a brand-name celebrity like Johnson will no doubt immediately expand Voss’s reach and awareness.
“We were in a fortunate position to be able to formalize a relationship that already existed, with one of the most influential talents in the world, who beautifully embodies Voss’s vision for the future,” says Boorstin. “That underlying authenticity, the truthfulness in the relationship—that is really what sets this apart in the space.”
Fast Company , Read Full Story
(19)
