For over 150 years as a regional American brand, Deer Park® Spring Water has built a legacy of legitimately showing up for the local communities it serves – of keeping it real. So, as an official partner of MLB, and with the All-Star Game being held in Atlanta, Deer Park saw an opportunity to celebrate the All-Stars on the field and the real All-Stars in the community.
We had three objectives. First, we wanted to engage meaningfully with the people of Atlanta through culturally relevant storytelling leveraging our official partnerhsip with MLB. We also wanted to reinforce Deer Park’s long-standing community roots as a true hometown brand – after all, baseball fans love to root for the home team. Lastly, we wanted to empower Atlanta residents to support organizations strengthening their city, turning engagement into action.
To keep it real, we needed to celebrate Atlanta’s actual all stars, starting with George F. Baker III, an Atlanta-based illustrator and muralist whose work captures the city’s energy, pride, and cultural rhythm. Together, Deer Park and George created a limited-edition aluminum bottle for the All-Star Game, inspired by Atlanta and designed to reflect the people and places that make the city feel like home.
Rather than revealing the bottle in a single moment, Deer Park chose to tell the story in chapters designed specifically for Instagram. The narrative began with a “making of” series, allowing the audience to follow George’s creative process. Each episode explored a different layer of the story, from George’s artistic approach and his Atlanta roots to the meaning behind the design.
But we didn’t stop there. We broadened the story from the bottle to the community itself, as George created a large mural in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood next to the historic stadium where Hank Aaron played. Deer Park documented the mural’s creation through short-form video and stories, allowing followers to experience the transition from concept to larger-than-life community art.
While George was the brand’s first local all-star, he wasn’t the brand’s only one. In partnership with MLB, Deer Park brought the stories of three additional Atlanta-based organizations to the region, highlighting their crucial value to the community.
As fans engaged with Deer Park on social media, they were invited to vote on other Local All-Star organizations working to strengthen the Atlanta community. They helped determine where Deer Park’s support would go, ultimately resulting in a $95,000 donation to celebrate the 95th All-Star Game.
The brand also used social media to guide audiences through a connected story that moved from league partnership to art to community to action. Deer Park intentionally focused on storytelling that ignited hyper-local pride, and earned deeper local resonance.
The result was a fully integrated local campaign that connected product, place, and community participation.
For Deer Park, this wasn’t just a campaign. It was about giving back to the community that has been home to the brand for generations and using local storytelling to spotlight the people who make it special.
This storytelling resonated with our audience. We achieved a 192% increase in reach, doubled overall engagement, and achieved 6X engagement on our best-performing post. The results didn’t stop on social, the story garnered 7 million earned impressions, and results in lifts in both brand perception and dollar sales.
This purpose-driven narrative led to real engagement and participation, and it reinforced Deer Park Sprin Water's belief that the best stories are about the people who make a place feel like home.
