The greatest marketing success story of recent years - the bottling and branding of water as a 'lifestyle choice' - is in for a shake-up with the launch of the country's first brand of 'ethical' water.
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One water's pledge to donate its profits to providing clean water to communities in developing countries is set to throw down the gauntlet to popular water brands to review their marketing.
Ten cents from every bottle of One sold will fund roundabout-powered pumps in villages in Africa and Asia at a cost of $15,000 each. Last year sales in the United Kingdom helped provide clean water for half a million people in more than 200 communities in Africa and Asia, the company behind the venture, Global Ethics said.
But its founder Duncan Goose said the brand had failed to capture its target of 1 per cent share of the British bottled water market because large companies had "jumped on the ethical bandwagon". "What were they weren't doing was playing by the ethical rules," Mr Goose said.
He singled out a campaign by the Paris-based Volvic water to donate 4 cents for every litre of water sold to Unicef, which will guarantee at least 10 litres of water to African children. But Mr Goose said that the company spent £3.5 million marketing the campaign to raise £250,000. "To my mind that's madness.. why couldn't they just give that money," he said. A spokesman for Volvic, which is not sold in Australia, was unavailable for comment.
Mr Goose estimates that if all the water companies got behind his brand the problem of one billion people in the world who do not have access to fresh drinking water would be eradicated in 27 days.
At yesterday's launch the actor and TV personality Rhys Muldoon, who will appear alongside other celebrities in a forthcoming television commercial, launched a scathing attack on the companies that dominate the $545 million Australian market, calling them "greedy mother******s". "It's just turning tap water into cash so it would be great to see that turned around for good," he said.
An analyst with research company IBISWorld Audrey Riddell said the boom days of water were over; growth rates had halved and consumers were reviewing whether it is worth paying the price for convenience. However she doubted mainstream brands would follow One's ethical lead. "They will be particularly careful as any [ethical] claims invariably attract extra scepticism ...and criticisms usually follow these actions."
Coca Cola, which dominates the market with its Mount Franklin and Pump brands, failed to say if it planned a similar move. Instead a spokeswoman cited its annual pink lids campaign on Mount Franklin bottles to raise money for breast cancer research and its donation of $1 million to help young people as example of its community programs.
