The Background and the Problem
Water advertising often relies on familiar imagery of refreshing splashes, natural springs and people enjoying a cold drink. While these visuals communicate the benefits of hydration, they can make it difficult for brands to stand out in a category where products offer similar functional benefits.For Studena, the challenge was to make hydration more memorable and encourage people to take their daily water intake seriously. People often say they are “dying of thirst” when they feel thirsty, but the expression is usually treated as an exaggeration rather than a reason to change their behaviour. Studena and Imago Ogilvy saw an opportunity to turn this everyday expression into a distinctive creative idea that could capture attention and connect with Croatian culture.
The Insight
In Croatia and the wider Balkan region, traditional funeral mourning, known as Naricanje, involves mourners expressing grief through dramatic cries and lamentations. It is an emotionally powerful cultural practice associated with death and loss.
Meanwhile, people casually describe their thirst as if they were facing a tragedy. The contrast between the solemnity of traditional mourning and the everyday experience of forgetting to drink water offered an opportunity for humour. The insight was simple: people say they are dying of thirst, but rarely take their hydration habits as seriously as the expression suggests.
The Idea
What if Studena mourned the people who were dying of thirst?
With A Cry for Hydration, Studena brought professional Croatian mourning women into the world of water advertising, not to mourn the dead, but to lament those who were not drinking enough water. By taking the expression “dying of thirst” literally, the campaign transformed an ordinary hydration reminder into an unconventional piece of entertainment.
Rather than relying on conventional health messaging, the brand used cultural familiarity, exaggerated emotion and humour to make its message more memorable.
The Execution
The campaign centred on a digital film featuring professional mourning women performing traditional laments for people neglecting their hydration. The solemn performances and dramatic wailing contrasted with the everyday nature of the behaviour being addressed, creating humour while reinforcing the importance of drinking water.
The idea extended into contextual YouTube pre-roll advertisements, with versions tailored to the content viewers were watching, including music videos, tutorials and exercise content. The lyrics were adapted to the context, allowing the hydration message to feel relevant to different viewing situations rather than appearing as a generic reminder.
Studena also extended the campaign into social media by inviting people to tag friends who were not drinking enough water. The mourning women then created personalised videos lamenting those individuals’ hydration habits. This encouraged audiences to participate in the campaign and share the message through their own social circles.
Across these executions, the campaign maintained a consistent creative approach, using a recognisable cultural tradition to turn a familiar expression into a shareable brand experience.
The Results
A Cry for Hydration gave Studena a distinctive way to communicate a familiar product benefit in a crowded category. By combining a culturally specific tradition with an everyday consumer behaviour, the campaign moved away from conventional water advertising and created a memorable creative identity. A Cry for Hydration got 43 million+ impressions with 24 million+ engagement overall.
Its digital-first approach enabled the idea to extend across online video, contextual advertising and personalised social content. The social activation also encouraged people to involve their friends in the campaign, making the hydration reminder more interactive than a conventional advertisement.
The campaign received recognition on the international advertising circuit, including a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2026 and distinctions at the London International Awards. These achievements demonstrate its creative recognition, although publicly available records do not establish a verified set of sales, reach or brand-lift figures to quantify its commercial impact. At the crossroads of ideas, culture meets marketing.
The Awards
- Cannes Lions 2026: Bronze Lion, Social & Creator.
- London International Awards 2026: Silver in Online Film, Bronze in Performance/Casting and Bronze in Creative Strategy – Cultural Insight.
- Golden Drum 2026: Shortlisted in multiple categories, including Craft Drum, Creative Media Excellence Drum and Genius Loci/Local Spirit.
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