Eau Dear!
‘NO-ONE ever lost money by overestimating the gullibility of the consumer, so news that Coca-Cola is bottling tap water from Sidcup and selling it on as a designer product comes as little surprise.
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| Eau d’Anorak – ‘from water closet to water cooler in five minutes’ |
Nor does the fact that the company is planning to charge 95p for half a litre of what people in that part of Kent daily fill whole baths with.
Bottled water is one of the great marketing cons of the late 20th Century and anyone prepared to pay that sort of money for a product they can get for (almost) free deserves all they get.
Unscrupulous restaurants have for a long time been decanting filtered tap water into fancy bottles and selling it on to unaware punters.
Indeed, the only surprise is that it has taken one of the great behemoths of American capitalism so long to muscle in on the UK market.
The Times helpfully traces Sidcup tap water back to its source – a borehole linked to underground aquifers beneath the town – through an unmanned treatment plant in Bexley to an underground reservoir in Farningham and to the tap.
When it emerges from said tap, it costs just 0.0316p per half litre – less than 1/3,000th of what Coke plans to charge.
But, of course, Coke will tell you that its product is not just tap water.
After emerging from the tap, the water is purified to remove particles and debris; it then goes through a process known as reverse osmosis; and finally the company adds a number of minerals (presumably the same ones as it has just removed) ‘to make it taste nicer’.
But now for the real stroke of genius – the water is then poured into bright blue bottles (which, the Times says, suggest ‘idyllic fresh water scenes’) and sold under the name Dasani.
Dasani? Yes, Dasani – a name created by people who love water and who thought it suggested ‘relaxation, pureness and replenishment’.’
Posted: 2nd, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
