OKAPA | THE STATE OF OKAPA

Leading a collaboration with Man vs Machine, Substantial and eight independent artists to build a multi-world brand universe and launch the ultimate hydration statement.

Named after a highland region of Papua New Guinea, Okapa is a $300 water bottle.

And on its specs, it’s cheap at that: A German-made, zero-porosity borosilicate 3.3 flask; a Swiss-made medical grade high-density tactile mouthpiece; a virtually frictionless spring-loaded opening mechanism; and an eight-piece, hygeine-first construction - all wrapped in a silicon suspension system and precision-cut anodized aluminium.

Oof.

As Creative Director with Sunshine, we were set the challenge to build a brand platform that could live at the same level as the product itself: Nothing spared, no minimalist recessive branding. All out, 150%, all the time.

The concept we developed, The State of Okapa, positioned the bottle as a key to entering a state of creative flow, delivering an addictive sensory experience that helps ensure the habitual hydration needed to reach and maintain unthinking immersion and focus.

We identified art as the cultural playground where we could connect with both idealistic Gen Zers and luxury hypebeasts alongside Bearbrick, KAWS memorabilia and rare Air Max editions. To create individuality and collectability around the colourways, we developed a character story and aesthetic world for each and commissioned artists including McBess and Hattie Stewart to bring them to life.

We provided concept and creative oversight to digital build specialists Substantial for the delivery of an ambitious e-comm website. As well as exploring the bottle through a vertically scrollable product demo supported by storyworld interpretations of key features, users can skip laterally between colorways, soundscapes and parallel character worlds.

This is a clip of the full, a flowing, fantastical experience. Try it for real, it’s obscenely good. And there’s music.

To tie the varied visual worlds together, we developed a unifying Okapa tone of voice designed to convey an urgent, obsessive, stream of consciousness reflecting both the experience of creative flow, and the relentless, uncompromising striving common to both our audience and Okapa’s founder.

As well as developing a brand bible, creative playbook and comms strategy for launch, we briefed Man vs Machine to create a suite of sumptuous, unhinged video assets.

Which they duly did.

Agency: Sunshine

Role: Creative Director, concept and copy

ECD: Ed Warren

Art Director CDs: Alex Bones, Simon Holmes

Strategy: Simon Robertson, Caroline Asmussen

Collaborating agencies: Man vs Machine, Substantial