Looking to crack into the lucrative U.S. market, Perrier developed a marketing plan in 1976 to persuade the public to buy something that could be found by simply turning on the tap. At the time, the only water people bought came primarily in the form of jugs delivered to homes and offices for use in coolers.
Perrier’s campaign was to sell a specific message, and it targeted a specific population: well-to-do baby boomers, born between 1945 and 1965, as they entered adulthood, according to Priceonomics. It sought to assure them that those who partook of Perrier’s sparkling waters were sophisticated, classy, and conscientious. It conferred, in a word, status.
The ad agency chose Orson Welles as its spokesman – not a surprising choice given his rich baritone and success hawking Paul Masson wines and Jim Beam whiskey. The man whose voice had convinced a jittery public in 1938 that Martians had invaded was hired to extol the virtues of sparkling water with a series commercials that first debuted in 1977.
Reportedly, Welles was paid a whopping $500,000 for each spot – dwarfing his payment for past TV commercial voiceovers.
“Deep below the plains of southern France in a mysterious process begun millions of years ago, nature herself adds life to the icy waters of a single spring,” Welles intoned in a Perrier commercial from 1979, as a bubbling stream cascaded from a green bottle and swirled into a clear goblet. “Perrier, its natural sparkle is more delicate than any made by man and therefore more quenching, more refreshing and a mixer par excellence. Naturally sparkling, from the center of the earth – Perrier.”
As part of the marketing plan, Perrier dropped the price of its 23-ounce bottle from $1.09 to 69 cents – within the reach of a certain strata of society, but significant enough that buying it still constituted a statement, according to The Wall Street Journal, Perrier now rested in “that sweet spot of being simultaneously aspirational and accessible.”
Check out a vintage television advertisement from featuring Welles promoting Perrier.
(Portions of this article previously appeared on Wellesnet on June 20, 2016.)
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