I came across this article in the New York Times almost a month ago and have been meaning to blog about it ever since. For those not familiar, a brief synopsis of the storyline at play.

For the past several years people in countries around the world have begun to purchase bottled water in astronomical numbers. According to some research 12,000,000,000 (12 Billion – that’s 9 zeros) gallons of water were sold in 16 Western European countries in 2007. For the North Americans in the audience your fact is that between 1997 and 2007 per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled to 29 gallons.

As we have seen in most if not all of these countries, the environmental and economic impact of these empty water bottles is a huge headache for municipalities.  Now put yourself in the shoes of the Mayor of Venice. Beautiful Venice has no roads so trash must be collected on foot and while plastic bottles can be recycled, the process is not exactly perfected. Trash collection on the mainland in Italy costs $84 per ton. Collection in Venice where it is collected by men with wheelbarrows along the canals costs $335 per ton.

So what has the city of Venice done? Did it ban plastic bottles or start charging a premium (see Toronto’s policy of charging 5 cents for platic bags) to those who use them? Nope, the city went in a completely novel direction and decided to brand their tap water. For years many people have claimed that bottled water was marketing and hype at its greatest or ugliest point in that you were paying 12 cents for the water and another buck fifty for the name on the label. So putting that theory to the test officials in Venice decided to meet bottled water’s branding with some of their own and renamed Venice’s tap water “Acqua Veritas.”

Ok so you are thinking, “who cares if they rename tap water, that’s not branding” which would be true, but the Venetians understood your skepticism and backed up the name change with a slick logo and a billboard ad campaign that included local politicians. Even taking a page from comedy 101 which teaches you to poke fun at yourself, the advertising campaign plays on the fact that tap water is often referred to as “the mayor’s water” and has used this as a slogan where prominent Venice personalities are pictured with a glass of Acqua Veritas and the phrase “I, too, drink the mayor’s water.”acqua_large

I decided to highlight this campaign not only because of its novel nature, but also to remind that there are often times where a brand (in this case any bottled water) has taken control of an industry and most would write off other brands (in this case tap water) where the other brands are not dead, they just need to reinvent themselves or reeducate the public. In the case of Venice’s tap water they have done both and to some early success.As Silvia Vatta a 25 year old student noted, “we used to use bottled water because we grew up with it at home and didn’t know any better.” Now Ms. Vatta is a regular Acqua Veritas drinker and the number of Venetians who drink tap water has risen 7 percentage points over a two year span.

My point to this post is that while we might see some companies as industry leaders who cannot be unseated, it is only that way because we let our perception become reality and don’t think we can change the “staus quo.”  What we seem to forget is that the status quo today was probably not the status quo five years ago and something worked to change it. Whether it is a marketing effort or collective social conscence (e.g. going green being top of mind today when just 5 years ago it was for “tree huggers”) that moves that status quo my point is that it can and does move.  Think about your own industry or even walk into your local grocery store and scan the drinks shelves. Ten years ago we had Gatorade but little else that would be considered a specialty drink. Now I step out at lunch and see people chugging everything from “Viatamin Water” to “Viatmin Enriched Coke” – So kudos to Venice for a well thought out and well executed campaign, now if they would only fly me down to do a taste test.

As always your thoughts, comments and feedback are appreciated.


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