Cool Ridge bottled water is taking on market leader Mount Franklin with a relaunch of the brand featuring Australian animal puppets.

Schweppes Australia and agency BMF Melbourne have teamed up with Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop for a series of TVCs featuring puppets behind-the-scenes at Cool Ridge headquarters. In the first video, a wombat and his team of native animal marketing experts create the new brand slogan, ‘Crafted By Nature’.

Lending their voice talents to some of the characters are Melbourne hipster satirist The Bedroom Philosopher and Adam Zwar, star of Australian comedy television series Wilfred.

This relaunch of the Cool Ridge brand is an attempt to claw back some of the estimated 51% share of the local bottled water market dominated by Coca-Cola Amatil Limited, which makes Mount Franklin, Pump and Vitamin Water, among others.

IBISWorld estimates Australia’s bottled water manufacturing industry revenue at $621.6 million, with Cool Ridge’s parent company, Asahi Holdings Australia, holding 36.6% of market share.

Cool Ridge’s decision to employ the quirky group of puppets takes a different spin on brand mascots to competitor Mount Franklin, which has been using model Jennifer Hawkins to promote its Lightly Sparkling brand.

Schweppes Australia Cool Ridge brand manager Bo Jakubenko said the new campaign aimed to “break category moulds for marketing water in Australia”.

“BMF and Dogboy have provided a fresh perspective on advertising what is traditionally viewed as a fairly mundane category.”

The format of the commercial (though not the production values) is surprisingly similar to a recent release by water category competitors Thank You Group, which also included a boardroom meeting to decide on the brand’s new direction.

The group has rebranded its Thank You water to strike out the word water, highlighting the company’s expansion into food and skincare products and away from a sole focus on bottled water.

Further commercials will air later this year in support of Cool Ridge’s new flavoured and lightly sparkling products. The campaign consists of TV, outdoor, POS and social media.