The Context
The whole engineered surface category was navigating a crisis: crystalline silica in quartz surfaces had become a health and safety issue in the manufacturing process. Icon was Caesarstone's solution: a significant product development that used the newest technologies to meet fast evolving industry standards. This industry backdrop, along with the authenticity macro trend, was our territory for the launch.
The Challenge
Caesarstone’s instinct was to lead with the origin story of their product: how their designers found inspiration in natural environments to create products that looked and felt as close to natural stone as possible. Although an important product feature, we advised against leading with this positioning for two key reasons. Firstly, in a competitive arena that includes genuine marble and granite, this positioning would be difficult to own. And secondly, in a sector where trust is being rebuilt, credibility could be damaged if customers feel claims lack authenticity in any way.
The Strategy
Our experience in luxury brands has established a principle we call head and heart: the understanding that emotional resonance often connects consumers to a brand before rational justification. Product features are head, why they matter to a consumer is heart. Rather than claiming Icon is an engineered surface that looks like real stone, we positioned it as the surface for real life: all the beauty of stone with the resilience for everyday living.
We invited our audience to see themselves enjoying real-world, meaningful experiences at home: cooking or crafting with children, playing vinyl records, eating, drinking or simply being. Icon became the foundation for genuine moments of connection.
The Concept
Icon has a translucent quality that gives it visual depth and reflects light. We captured this quality in our messaging concept, which invites the audience to Look Deeper.
Nous developed three fully realized personas around individual lifestyles and built comprehensive mood boards so every creative decision had a human reality to be measured against. The concept was captured in a marketing playbook for internal use across the global marketing teams. It provided a messaging framework for the campaign, including key communication pillars, product proof points, tag lines and brand copy, with a fit and flex approach that allowed for market adaptation whilst always staying true to the core campaign message.
The Work
The photographic shoot was produced in-house by Nous, with sets designed and fabricated locally to our specifications.
Hero lifestyle images
Hero lifestyle images showed our personas enjoying real life around their Caesarstone surfaces — cooking, playing and relaxing.
Still-life images
Still-life product images paired the surfaces with carefully chosen props: vintage Leica cameras, analogue cooking tools, a flower press.
Film
The campaign film was storyboarded, scripted, cast and fully produced by Nous. We shot on the studio sets and in a real house, stitching the footage together to create continuous domestic spaces.
The film was shot in a handheld style to create an observational, filmic quality rather than polished commercial perfection.
The Impact
Uptake of the campaign by global markets, who in the past have been known to reject centrally produced content, was enthusiastic, with many developing the campaign assets further to make full use of them across local formats.
Ucitectem earcipis dus, omnitat endenda epudae nimus accus et volorionet volor rem excestorese ne nobitium exersperchit inti nulpa, consed ut volupti dolupta erum qui coraerf ersperibus adios verumetur.
The Learning
This project shows where luxury communication is heading: affluent consumers are investing in quality for personal and individual reasons: their own daily rituals, their family’s experience of home. Brands in this space are competing not just for a customer’s spend or attention, but for a prized place in their life.
