Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

It’s simple. It’s fun. It tackles a big issue affecting the soft drinks industry, recycling, but without the beads and sandals. And it has a nice Supertramp soundtrack too. But behind the scenes the industry is not smiling as it’s facing a big problem.

In the last few weeks bottled water, and the soft drinks industry, have been coming under fire from environmental supporters. The use of petroleum to make millions of bottles, the problem with landfill, flotsam in the oceans, recycling (less then 25% get recycled) and the carbon footprint of transport has made it an easy target.

Worldwide, there are now over 1000 brands of bottled water (on average, bottled water makes more profit than soft drinks). Add to that all the soft drinks brands and that’s a lot of bottles.

The recent Panorama programme on bottle water was hard hitting. The soft drinks industry have hit back by creating the BWIO, Bottled Water Information Office, to act as spokesman and put forward the counter arguments.

Another problem that has gravity behind it is Ken Livingstone and Thames Water’s recently launched London on Tap campaign. The aim is to encourage Londoners to reject bottled water and ask for tap in restaurants. He and others are also putting pressure on government and local authorities to cut purchasing of bottled and water cooler water.

The highlighting of the cost to public authorities, especially in a time when budgets are being cut, must be sending shivers down many suppliers back.

Lewisham came in for media criticism last week for hypocrisy as it was preaching tap water ethics whilst spending a fortune on bottled water for staff. Someone stands to lose a big contract.

It’s an amazing confidence in your values that Whole Foods have an open forum on their website that invites customers to be honest and even critical about what they sell. One customer said: “Use tap water whenever possible. The cost of bottled water production, purification and transportation amounts to approximately one quarter gallon of oil-related hydrocarbon/carbon emissions per gallon of bottled water produced.”

Meanwhile, there are a growing number of ethical brands like Charity Water, Life, Ethos (founded by Peter Thum and sold to Starbucks in 2005) and Thirsty Planet, to name but a few. These are using bio degradable packaging, or Tetrapaks, and donating part of their profits to water projects in Africa.

It’s a tough time for bottled water (and soft drinks) and given the trend in the US, one that could see declining sales unless they change focus. Coke and PepsiCo in the States are well aware of the ethical issues and have shifted their focus towards celebrity endorsement on TV ads and charity support on the ground. PepsiCo have scored a hat trick by supporting Matt Damon’s H2O Africa project, while Coke is working with WWF.

There is strong evidence that when it comes to people vs the planet, people win. Coke and PepsiCo’s reframing could be very smart thinking and may actually defeat the environmentalists argument enough to win back public support.

There are over a billion people who do not have access to clean water in the world and many have to walk miles for any water at all. Over 2 million die a year – many children – from drinking bad water.

March 22^nd is World Water Day and an opportunity for brands to show their charity side. In London the ‘H2O – walk for water, walk for life’ campaign is about to be launched. Londoners are being encouraged to walk from tube stations beginning with H and walking to stations starting with O, ie Hampstead 2 Old Street, Holborn to Oxford Circus. Ironically the idea hasn’t come from a water brand or even a charity but an ad agency.

For an amusing look at bottled water and the placebo effect of marketing, check out ‘The Truth About Bottled Water’ by TV magicians Penn & Teller. In one test 75% of people preferred New York tap water. P&T even set up a fake water waiter (like a wine waiter) at a top restaurant and tricked people into picking fake waters - all of course tap water. Unsurprisingly, the customers raved about their choice of water and claimed a definite difference. Well until they discovered they had been fooled.

They reveal that Alaskan Falls water actually comes from Ohio, not Alaska. While Everest Water comes from… well not Mount Everest but… Texas and is actually tap water (as is 25% of bottled water in the US). The most amazing stunt was getting people to drink a bottle of Amazon water that has a spider in it. See it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc

(If you want to see just how gullible people are, includes a snail facial, see Placebo Effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzjoKhBklYg&NR=1)

Meanwhile, the Coke ad, ‘Every Bottle Counts’, from Publicis International Oy, Helsinki is a fun way to tackle recycling.

See it on YouTube or: http://www.adforum.com/Top5/index.asp?AD=6708272&tda=VD1tKOafiu&promo=A81

Facts on bottle water

http://www.bottledwaterblues.com/Bottled_Water_Facts.cfm