Cans creates crew of Animated Ambassadors

The New ‘Non-Sweet’ Drink Range launches New Creative Campaign 

CANS, the new non-sweet drink brand that launched into the UK in March, has just unveiled the new CANS CREW – a team of animated characters who not only tell the brand’s story but also take on the role of its main ambassadors. With a focus on creativity and building deeper customer relationships, the CANS CREW is launching through a brand campaign video, created to introduce the first character and kick off the CANS creative story.

Jan Rambousek, co-founder and creative director at CANS says. "This isn’t a change in visual identity, but an expansion – a long-term element that people can connect with and through which we can better communicate our brand message. Brands that survive for decades are built on strong stories," 

Each CANS CREW character plays a specific role that reflects the reality of startup life at CANS: Bruce – a gentle giant in charge of production and logistics; Karl – Bruce’s beloved pug and inseparable work partner; Emily – a communications specialist handling social media and chaos in spreadsheets!; and for sweet things and Flex – self-proclaimed brand ambassador and fitness enthusiast.

"The characters are basically us. Each one goes through startup life – from manufacturing and logistics to launching new products. Instead of traditional advertising, we chose to tell our story through animation," Rambousek adds. 

The characters have been in development for the past two years, going through countless iterations and testing. The final look was created using a combination of Cinema 4D, Blender, and AI, which helped speed up the concept phase. 

"AI doesn’t handle the final production yet, but it serves as inspiration and a tool for rapid ideation. Once the tech evolves, we’ll integrate it into a wider range of content," explains Rambousek. "Our goal is to help people visualize how a company like ours works through these characters – and to let them meet the CANS CREW across various platforms and events. If they eventually become part of pop culture and gain fans of their own, that’s a win for us". 

CANS, which launched in the UK earlier this year is on a mission to create a new 'non-sweet' category. The fledgling brand combines sparkling Alpine water with real fruit and effervescent bubbles. Made with five ingredients or less, the range contains no added sugar, no sweeteners and nothing artificial The brand, which first launched to market in the Czech Republic 15 months ago has seen strong early success, selling more than 1million CANS to date. 2025 marks the entry into the UK, in a bid to secure sales of 5,000,000 CANS before the end of the year. 

CANS is the brainchild of three co-founders; Jaroslav Beck, Dominic Rice and Jan Rambousek who came together not to start a company, but to create an alternative to sweet drinks, one that people would actually want to drink and enjoy without remorse. When they couldn’t find anything that they were satisfied with already on the market, they decided to ‘rethink drink’ and launch their own product. 

Find out more about CANS at: cans.co.uk / @cans.co.uk. You can also view the film on Youtube here.