As Creative Director for the I LOHAS brand at Ogilvy Japan, I helped shape the campaign that turned a near-failure into a cultural and commercial phenomenon.
After the eco bottle boom, our focus shifted: from packaging to purity.
We brought I LOHAS back to life by reconnecting it to its source – literally.
Our campaign spotlighted the pristine, local springs it came from, framing the brand as a steward of nature, not just a bottler of it.
Against a backdrop of imported competition and flashy rivals, we leaned into restraint. Reverence. Ritual.
With poetic storytelling and sensorial detail, we made water feel magical again – clean, rare, essential. This wasn’t about hydration. It was about emotion. I LOHAS didn’t just sell water. It honoured it.
We built a campaign rooted in in nature – from hypnotic visuals of droplets through mountain landscapes to integrated moments across TV, digital, and out-of-home.
Collaborating with visual masters like ManvsMachine, and bringing in cultural heavyweights like Hiroshi Abe and Yuka Minami, we gave the brand emotional lift and national credibility.
The results? Top-selling bottled water in Japan within a year and 2nd biggest Coca-Cola brand. A Gold Effie. And a category-wide shift in how brands thought about sustainable design.
