dispatches from the new world of work

Bottoms Up!

With imagination, one can add value to, literally, anything. While we know that, we seem to ignore it when we fret ceaselessly over what happens as we lose our underwear factories to China. Answer: Turn to water! Consider this news item from AOL last night: "With 600 brands to choose from, bottled water now outsells soft drinks. However, instead of buying a beverage made from a secret formula (Coca-Cola), we're spending $100 billion annually worldwide to drink what pours from our own taps. ... In 2005, the Beverly Hills company Bling H20 introduced its limited edition spring water selling for $34 a liter that's become a Hollywood signature."

Not the basis for a "sound economy," you rebut! Well, it has been for about the last 60 or so years as branding of mundane stuff has become the main engine of value-added. Perhaps the only news is not water, but the fact that, in a wildly competitive global economy, we now have to brand ourselves to survive. You know, the "brand you" bit.

Tom Peters posted this on 02/15/06.

Comments

$34 - hmmm not in my dreams ... plan to stick with the Whirlpool refrig ice / filtered water dispenser.

Posted by Sean at February 15, 2006 10:26 AM

Vermont tap, from the well (a little pump grease, now and then) (and ... A LOT OF IRON--love those orange towels)

Posted by tom peters at February 15, 2006 12:03 PM

It was George Carlin who once said, "if you nail two things together that have never been nailed together before, some schmuck will buy it from you." And we should never forget the immortal words of P.T. Barnum.

Posted by Mike at February 15, 2006 1:29 PM

Buying water at $34/L is just throw-down IMMORAL. (unless, of course, morality has no meaning in your life!)

Posted by Walter Babetski at February 15, 2006 2:54 PM

I don't plan to consume any $34 water, but if high prices were a morality issue, I guess we'd have to close down everything but Wal*Mart and its Chinese suppliers.

Posted by tom peters at February 15, 2006 2:59 PM

Going fwd...I guess water is gonna become a scarce commodity (well, it already is in some countries)..maybe we have to store (invest in) water for our kids & grandkids to consume...whadda fate for this wild wild world! In this wired world, looks like we have more websites than water!! I truly hope the governments & citizens (like us) get serious about this & do something about it that would benefit the world (and our society) at large. CONSERVE! CONSERVE! CONSERVE! - Please remember that there are a million people in the corner of this world who dont get to drink even a glassful of water per day. Have you thought about it?

Posted by K.Sriram at February 15, 2006 11:44 PM

Were water bottlers visionaries? Most tap water is overly flouridated, much of it contains bacteria that we don't really want to ingest. Completely non-potable in many areas of the world (radiated, contaminated, etc.). My grandmother's tap water in Staten Island was brown.

Designer water? I suppose there are people who need ways to spend their overflowing buckets of money.

One bottler of water from an Irish spring claims that his water actually has medicinal properties from the mineral content. He noticed lame cows that grazed on the land above the spring improving - supposedly it works wonders for arthritis and other maladies?

The functional water market contains products that claim to tan skin, supress appetite, ease arthritis pain and even improve appearence.

Read: http://www.nutraingredients.com/news-by-health/news.asp?id=61507&idCat=129&k=functional-water-struggles

Posted by Tom O'Leary at February 16, 2006 5:16 AM

It's double edged success: http://gnn.tv/headlines/7580/Bottled_water_taxing_Earth

Posted by Michael at February 16, 2006 3:35 PM

I can't find that AOL quote. Do you have a source? Thanks in advance.

Posted by Tom Asacker at February 16, 2006 6:07 PM

In 2003 we were considering product names for water... we had just leased a property for vegetable production - and the property had a tapped well for spring water. Most of the properties on the same mountain deliver the bulk of water sales into supermarkets here in Australia...

We couldn't believe how big the water business was then... water sold for more dollars per litre than petrol.

The competition (in 2003): Coke's Pump was $2.60 for 750ml... was $3.45 a litre! Compared to petrol at $0.95 (then) per litre.

What a scam though, $3.45 for burnt hydrogen !!! Because that is all that water is !!!

We ended up leasing the well to a neighbour who already had a good distribution line... but for us - there was something that we couldn't see ourselves doing - selling water!! (Maybe we do have morals!)

For me, personally, I drink distilled water - I have my own machine at home and it produces 3.5 litres of water a day for around 60 cents. That keeps me from drinking fluro tap water!

It's safer to drink distilled water from your own glass unit than most of the bottled water that is delivered in plastic bottles - that may or may not be leaching chemicals from it's plastic container............

BTW - the cow thing ? We have that here in Australia too. Some 3-4 years ago. Here it was a chemist who "discovered" what the "cows" had been consuming - the water - and had been able to duplicate the same thing with added minerals in a special formulation. People lined up for days outside the bottling factory to get 1 case of this water. At least the story filled some news broadcasts air time!

SEEMS THE SAME STORY SELLS WELL IN IRELAND AS WELL.

JUST ANOTHER SCAM !

Posted by ovlas at February 18, 2006 2:34 AM