For the first time in history, Takashi Murakami has partnered with a French brand from the F&B industry – “Perrier” (巴黎水). Perrier is a carbonated soft drink with zero sugar and vitamin C (explore our articles about the soft drinks market in China and China’s beverage industry.) At the end of 2020, the Perrier brand approached Murakami with a cooperation proposal to create a Perrier x Murakami’s flowery designed sparkling water.
The internationally renowned contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami (村上,) is known for his animated, colorful characters. He founded Kaikai Kiki Ltd. Co. in Japan (2001) and in the States in New York (2001) and in Los Angeles (2010), where thousands of animation artists are trained and involved in production at the same time. Murakami rose to popularity on a global scale, during one of the first collaborations with the iconic brands Louis Vuitton, Supreme, Nike, Vans, as well as world-famous singers.
On September 14, 2020, Perrier released a video on the YouTube channel with Takashi Murakami, where Murakami talks about the collaboration with Perrier and the complexities of the design development, which took 6 months.
“Looking to the book (Collaboration of Perrier) on history Perrier, I think there was not a fully done worldwide collaboration with a Japanese artist, and there was no strong Asian influence merged with Perrier to create something new. In that sense, it is something new. As though West and East merged to create a new world.”
Takashi Murakami
Artist Murakami used Kaikai Kiki and the famous “Matango Flower” for his main characters. Further, Perrier x Murakami released a limited collection of bottles that was massively distributed in 35 countries of the world, including China.
Perrier x Murakami campaign in China
Since April, brands have been actively promoting the released limited collection on social networks as well as offline. The target city in China was Shanghai. Various advertising campaigns are organized during the month. One of the first companies was the interaction with the Shanghai community Dark Runners (上海夜跑团文). One evening, the runners were accompanied by a special Volkswagen T1 station wagon with prints from Perrier x Murakami; and at the end of the run, participants were given a limited-edition Perrier x Murakami soda bottle.
Further, at five points in Shanghai, the brand arranged a pop-up platform where the product was presented accompanied by additional activities. For example, in the same place, visitors could buy canvas bags with Kaikai Kiki prints. In addition, within the framework of marketing, cooperation was organized with Chinese celebrities – singer Jeffrey 董又霖 and actor Wang Qiang 王锵.
Also, it was not without the involvement of KOLs who spoke about the product in Xiao Hong Shu; and also on the Douyin platform by creating dance stickers and the hashtag # 一起笑出花 (Bursting laugh together). The number of videos per month was 8.1 billion.
Author: Erkeaiym Kylymbekova
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