Social impact and reusable water bottle brand Ocean Bottle is aiming to “reconnect with the emotion” behind its identity as it enters its next phase of growth.

To support this ambition, the business has unveiled a new identity, encompassing brand strategy, design, tone of voice and digital experience, in a bid to move beyond what it describes as “functional product messaging”.

“The reason for the rebrand came about from realising we were not hitting our true potential,” says Millie Allen, head of marketing at Ocean Bottle.

“Our mission is ambitious and exciting. The way we were communicating lacked clarity and confidence. It was a bit mismatched across channels.”

Founded in 2018, Ocean Bottle began as a DTC brand. It describes itself as a “social impact brand first, reusable water bottle brand second”. Each bottle funds the collection of plastic equivalent to 1,000 bottles in weight, with 15% of revenue per product donated to support this goal.

To date, the company says it has prevented more than 20.9 million kilograms of plastic, equivalent to 1.8 billion bottles, from reaching the ocean. Ocean Bottle has supported collection projects in Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Kenya, Brazil and Egypt. Collectors exchange plastic for money and get access to social resources such as healthcare, education and financial security.

Impact messaging

The brand has been consistently growing since its inception and has raised over £7m in capital. The challenge now is to unify its product and impact messaging to reach new audiences.

“Our impact messaging had these compelling and at times quite emotional stories of people at the front line of this plastic ocean crisis,” Allen states. “That was quite a stark contrast to the product messaging and comms that we were putting out.”

This realignment has prompted a shift in how the brand thinks and communicates internally. The research and refresh process has “unlocked creativity” across the team. The brand refresh also extends the company’s brand platform ‘There’s a thousand reasons to choose Ocean Bottle’.

“We’re trying to almost inject storytelling into everything we do, rather than looking at something as product comms or an impact,” she says.

Our mission is ambitious and exciting. The way we were communicating lacked clarity and confidence. It was a bit mismatched across channels.

Millie Allen, Ocean Bottle

A major catalyst for the refresh was Ocean Bottle’s growth in B2B, particularly through hospitality and hotel partnerships involving branded bottles and merchandise – now the company’s biggest revenue stream.

“What’s quite common in the B2B space, especially about corporate merchandise or corporate gifting, is that it’s quite flat and dry. We even fell into that. We lost the spark of what makes Ocean Bottle special and stand out,” Allen adds.

The brand now aims to “shake up” traditional B2B tactics and express its identity in a way it “can own”. At the same time, Ocean Bottle has expanded into the US, which required building a “cohesive and consistent brand”.

To inform the refresh, the team conducted customer research and updated its segmentation. The business also defined its “brand pillars” to guide partnerships, communications and the sales strategy.

The reusable bottle category is booming. According to Ocean Bottle’s latest consumer research, 83% of Brits now use a reusable water bottle and almost half (48%) consider it the most essential item when leaving the house.

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In a crowded market, the brand identified a key overlap between consumers who value both sustainability and good design.

“Our point of difference is that you can almost have both. With great product also comes big impact. A key shift that way is putting that impact in the consumers’ hands,” she notes.

Ocean Bottle’s customer has changed since the brand first launched. Early on, key consumers included marine biologists, but as public perception of reusable bottles changed the customer base broadened.

“The customer has changed a bit over time. As we were smaller, we were very ocean focused. We then had quite a broad customer base. That probably was also reflected in our targeting and our comms. We maybe went a little broad,” Allen reflects.

Although the brand has a “small media budget”, Allen notes that initiatives such as winning the 2023 Sky Zero Footprint Fund – which awarded Ocean Bottle £250,000 in media value – helped it reach new audiences.

“That gave us that opportunity to speak to millions of people and we saw that directly benefit our brand awareness and web traffic, brand search, etc. This year has been continuing to build off that,” she adds.

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On the B2B side, the brand has been “overt” in communicating its refresh, particularly on LinkedIn, with updates on tone of voice and visual style. On the consumer side, there is a “softer evolution”.

“We’ve been seeding it slightly through some channels like social and email for a couple of weeks,” Allen explains. “But this summer, what we’ll be looking to do is bring out more of a social-first summer campaign, which is more about bringing the brand to life through tapping into summer moments.”

Although the refresh won’t culminate in a big campaign, Ocean Bottle will be tracking awareness and consideration.

“The other big piece we do with that tracking is our perception, so that’s where I’m really expecting to see that shift,” Allen says.

She joined Ocean Bottle in April last year, having previously worked at Outdoor & Cycle Concepts, Brompton Bicycle, 99 Bikes and GHD.

“My experience at heritage brands helped me introduce the right processes, from briefing to project management tools, so we can work more efficiently as a team,” she adds.

The brand refresh arrives at a pivotal time as Ocean Bottle continues to expand its product line and global footprint, while closing in on its mission to stop 7 billion ocean-bound plastic bottles from entering the ocean by 2025.