Solo is a small local soft drink that has been around since the 30’s and is something of a national soda. People love the taste, but the brand was hopelessly outdated. Norway is also a small country. We’re only 5 million people, and you rarely see Norwegians on any famous people list. That’s why any attention in international press results in a field day for Norwegian media. If there are five lines in NY Times about Norway, it will often make the front page of our largest newspapers. This was a key part of the PR strategy.

The bottle idea was build on great taste and Norwegian roots - but with a twist that was all about getting international attention. Our ambition on the brand’s behalf was to show that coming from a small country doesn't prevent you from thinking big.

In the past, Norwegians conquered poles, climbed mountains and crossed oceans. Leaning on this adventurous past, we sent Solo on an expedition. We built an 8 meter long Solo message in a bottle, filled it with a letter and a case of Solo, dropped it into the sea and left it to the currents to decide who gets to taste. The bottle creates the campaigns' web content. It is equipped with GPS, a custom made 360 degrees camera and hardware/ software that enables people to follow the journey, see the photos and guess where in the world it will end up.

Step 1.

The bottle was build by renowned boat building company Hydrolift /Eker design, who've also designed far more fast going vehicles than a message in a bottle - like Koenigsegg sports cars. Together with the sheer size and nature of the project, this collaboration resulted in a lot of PR before the actual launch.

Step 2.

The launch of the bottle in Tenerife was done with the young Norwegian explorer Jarle Andhøy, who baptized the bottle, and gave his predictions on where the bottle most likely would end up. This event was the beginning of a documentary web-TV series about the project currently running on Norway's largest online newspaper.

Step 3.

As for now, focus is on the bottle and its whereabouts. People can follow the bottles course, guess where it will end up and win a Solo per nautical mile it drifts before hitting land.

So far, so good.

So far, Facebook fans are up 367%, Twitter 2286% and 150.000 people have visited solo.no, with 718.832 page views, 2,5 minute on the site. There have been visits on the site from more than 2.000 cities around the world, and more than 1000 articles about the project in Norwegian and international press.

Brand Image has started to change from "traditionally and safe" to "popular, cool and trendy" - but not on behalf of being a Norwegian, the part that Solo is a Norwegian brand is even stronger now. (TNS Gallup). Solo has increased sales since launching "Soon to be world famous" and is now the market leader in category Orange soft drink ahead of Fanta.

Share of marked is up 1,1% of of the soft drink marked since the launch of the campaign. Target group ( 15-19) preference is now 63% - up from 59%.