Brief:

• Water-filter maker Brita launched a social media campaign to point out the growing problem of plastic garbage while also touting its reusable drink bottles. The company is working with 21 influencers to post personalized Instagram pictures that have been photoshopped to depict natural settings marred by pollution, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
• The posts include a personal pledge to reduce plastic waste along with the hashtag #NoFilterNoFuture, referring to Brita's Filtering Water Bottles that come equipped with a miniature water filter. Future posts will explain how the influencers plan to follow up on their pledges, and how Brita's bottles can be refilled over and over to avoid having to buy water in single-use plastic bottles.
• Brita will complement the posts with IGTV and Instagram Story content to show the refillable bottle's benefits and how the influencers use them. Brita, whose products are marketed by Clorox in North America, is working with social-first marketing agency Social Chain on the #NoFilterNoFuture campaign.

Insight:

Brita's #NoFilterNoFuture campaign for reusable filter bottles combines several strategies to reach a demographic of tech-savvy, health-conscious and socially aware young adults. The brand worked with Social Chain to identify nearly two dozen Instagram influencers, such as actress and blogger Kylee Campbell and vlogger Kevin Droniak, each with roughly 100,000 followers, who would be well suited to raising awareness about the blight of plastic bottles on the world's oceans and beaches while raising purchase intent for its Filtering Water Bottles.

Brands are increasing their social influencer budgets this year to help cut through ad clutter and connect with younger audiences who are more likely to consume media content on their mobile devices. Brita is working with popular personalities on Instagram, the image-sharing app that has more than 1 billion users worldwide and is the most popular social influencer platform among brands and their customers.

About two-thirds of consumers globally said they follow a favorite influencer on Instagram, whose combination of photography, video, text and story carousels are well suited for engaging mobile users, according to a survey this year from Rakuten Marketing, a division of the Japanese ecommerce giant. Facebook and Google’s YouTube are tied as the second-most popular, with 62% of consumers saying they follow their favorite influencers on those platforms.

Consumer attitudes toward the product advice of social influencers vary by survey, and regional opinions may make a big difference. Rakuten's global survey found that only 41% of consumers said they find at least one new brand or product from an influencer each week, while 24% said they did so every day. Almost nine of out ten consumers said they were inspired to make a purchase based on what they saw from an influencer, per Rakuten. However, a more limited survey of consumers in several European countries and the U.S. showed less enthusiasm for social influencer opinions. Only about a third of social media users said they had discovered new products based on an influencer's post​, or made a purchase based on an influencer post, per a survey by Olapic and Cite Research.

Brita’s campaign demonstrates the brand’s commitment to protecting the environment, a strategy that’s likely to resonate with younger consumers who are more likely to favor brands that support causes. Cause-driven campaign are often well received by younger consumers and can drive longer-term loyalty while distinguishing brands from rivals. Almost two-thirds (64%) of consumers said they will buy or boycott a brand because of its social or political position on an issue, according to Edelman's most recent Earned Brand study. Generation Z tends to feel especially connected to important causes, and more than two-thirds of the age group think brands should help them achieve those goals, PSFK research revealed. Brands like Axe, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Gillette, Nike and Procter & Gamble's Secret deodorant have taken up causes in their recent campaigns.