There was a time…wayyy back before bottled water was a thing, when some entrepreneurial young people read that New York City tap water was voted the best in the world and they decided to do something about it. Tap water is free…so why not find a way to bottle it and sell it. Their slogan was… “The drink of millions.” Simple, factual and little cost. It got some great buzz, I remember even Macy’s carried some cases, but this was before the idea of drinking water from a bottle was part of our DNA, and the brand fizzled. Smart idea, catchy slogan (no social media or even an internet at the time), but just bad timing. Good taste, bad timing.
I thought of that this week when reading a story on Ad Week about a Swiss hockey team. Why? See below…
The Covid-19 pandemic turned life as we knew it upside-down, throwing unprecedented challenges in the way of at each and every industry—not least the sports industry, which has spent much of the past year on pause around the world, and often without a crowd.
In Switzerland, Zurich’s ZSC Lions ice hockey team played an entire season without spectators. To mark that historic period, agency Serviceplan found a clever way to bottle up the passion of ice hockey fans, literally.
The agency created a plan to bottle an entire rink’s worth of melted ice and give it away to top season ticket holders who missed out. The end result, said Serviceplan in a statement, is a “unique memento of the ‘silent season’ of 2020/ 2021” and aims to drum up anticipation for the eventual full return of ice hockey.
The 15 milliliter bottles of melted ice, called “Essence of Lions,” originate from the Hallenstadion, the home of the ZSC Lions club. The club made some humorous suggestions about what to do with the memento—from baptizing baby ZSC Lions fans to reviving dead houseplants and polishing trophies. “With a few icy drops, this project warmed the hearts of fans in difficult times,” said Raul Serrat, Serviceplan Switzerland chief creative officer. “As a creative, this is what I take the most pride in: creating work that inspires and reminds people of what really matters to them.”
Now bottling what used to be ice from a rink is not that new…I heard that when the Philadelphia Phantoms and Flyers ended their run at The Spectrum they gave away jars of ice that turned to water…but they weren’t that commemorative and the jars weren’t sealed right so the water eventually evaporated, but it seems like a great, and low cost commemorative that can be done every year no? After all where do all those Zamboni shavings go? Baseball teams have sold dirt, college teams have sold blades of grass and seeds from massive football stadia, so why not find a good way to package and sell or use as a promo the ice, or as done in Switzerland, the boiled down water? Now given the composition it’s not something that should be consumed, but heck, you could even freeze it again and display in colder months.
Simple idea, no? Maybe it’s not the drink of millions, but it is the ice that millions of fans would seem to enjoy in a time when commemorative and collectables are all the rage. A wet success in endless supply, all on a skate and in a building near you.
Score one for the Zurich Lions.
