PERRIER | LE LION ET LA LIONNE | 1991
This Is a Water Ad / PERRIER "LE LION ET LA LIONNE"
This film won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1991, and it's still the only French film ever to win the Film Grand Prix. 28 years later, it's remembered by one in two French people, and in 2019 it was voted the greatest ad of all time by the magazine Stratégies. That's how far a water ad can go.
The problem
In 1990, Perrier was in the middle of a massive crisis. Millions of bottles had been recalled over benzene contamination, forcing the brand out of the American market. Its old, wild, explosive slogan "Perrier c'est fou!" was shelved. The brand's image was in ruins, and it needed a complete reset. Ogilvy & Mather won the account and set out to find a new direction. After a crisis like that, what was needed was a message that was quiet, strong, and universal.
The insight
What would save the brand wasn't shock value, but strength. Jean-Paul Goude introduced a new signature line, "L'eau, l'air, la vie" (water, air, life), connecting Perrier to humanity's most basic needs: thirst and survival. A woman facing off against a lion in the desert is a remix of Beauty and the Beast, a life-or-death standoff over thirst. And the woman wins. For an ad from 1990, this was an early spark of feminism, a powerful image of a woman that mirrored the brand's own rebirth. Goude's magic, the same trick techniques he'd honed with Grace Jones, made the woman's mouth appear impossibly large as she roars back at the lion, and that single effect decided everything.
The idea
A woman and a lion creep toward a bottle of Perrier set on a dune in the desert. Tension builds. The lion roars. But the woman opens her mouth even wider and roars back, and at that moment, trick photography kicks in: her mouth overwhelms the lion's in sheer force. The lion flees. The woman wins. Standing on the dune, drinking her Perrier, she looks proud, fière. The soundtrack is Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put a Spell on You." It's all packed into thirty seconds: the tension of the editing, the choice of music, the roar, and the final signature, a crystallization of pure craft. According to Christian Reuilly, they waited a full day to capture the exact moment the lion actually roared, because when a lion roars, its mouth barely opens.
What happened
In 1991, the film won the Grand Prix in the Film category at Cannes Lions, the only Film Grand Prix in French advertising history, a record that still stands today. That same year, it also won the Grand Prix Stratégies de la Publicité. 28 years later, in 2018, Ogilvy reimagined the film as "Le Lionceau," this time with a young girl and a lion cub, for Perrier Fines Bulles. In 2019, to mark its 2000th issue, Stratégies magazine held a vote among 42 years of past Grand Prix winners, and this film was chosen as the best ad of all time. Judge Matthieu Elkaïm called it "an artistic gesture that goes beyond advertising."
Afterthought
"Ce film est apparu imbattable" (this film turned out to be unbeatable), Elkaïm said. Céline Mornet-Landa recalled that whenever this ad came on, people would stop whatever they were doing in front of the TV, and another judge remembered their parents saying, "This ad is genius." It's a work that went beyond advertising and lodged itself in cultural memory. A quiet roar born out of crisis, still echoing more than thirty years later. Proof that a water ad can go this far. I'd like to believe it too.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 1991
