While branded water does sell for more, if you look closely you discover that bottled water buyers are not nearly as brand loyal as other drink buyers are (most cola drinkers have tried both Coke and Pepsi and can tell the difference, most water buyers have likewise tried off brands and been unable to tell the difference). Store brand water sells very well in general.
> (who would guess that bottled waters are sold by Coke and Pepsi?)
Maybe it's a bit of a reach, but the Coke/Pepsi vending machines here have water in them and that was how I figured out each company also had their own brand of bottled water they also sold (Aquafina for Pepsi and Desani for Coke).
Look at it another way: the incremental unit cost of flavours, colours and carbonation probably isn't much. So really, every bottled beverage is primarily driven by logistics, marketing and consumer willingness. I doubt water is any more profitable than cola.
The difference with plain water is it's pretty much a true commodity product; assuming free-market economics, if it really were feasible to lower prices it would have already happened.
Even 15 years ago, vending machines sold many different flavours of bottled water. As people became more health-concious, the sugar-free variety grew more popular.
It's less mysterious when you consider the sales trends for bottled soft drinks vs bottled water. People are buying bottled water in situations where they used to buy bottled soda.
No, even then it is the same concept. The big global bottled company thought that the intrinsic value of the water is more than 50c or maybe more than 50$ . Now you have bunch of people carrying their water bottles around, giving them even more advertising. People think that water bottle company is what I should get based on those carrying it around. So infact, they are giving away water bottle for free, which compared to competitors might be 50c or 50$. but they think it is worth losing that for ad
I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but a big factor is that a bottle of soda costs the same as a bottle of water, and some times even less. It's absurd, because soft drinks are made of water, so water must be cheaper! Unfortunately, soft drink companies try to corner the bottled water market so it doesn't undermine their sales.
what about if they prefer the taste of the bottled water? San Pellegrino, since you mentioned it, certainly has a very distinctive taste profile, but even for other brands there will be a taste (which of course partially is affected by the branding).
Water as well. Is bottled water that much better (however you want to define that) than tap water put into any other container? There's a good deal of marketing in the bottled water industry.
I dunno, an awful lot of people seem to be making an awful lot of money by selling bottled water, and I don't see any of them using a rebellion-based marketing strategy. I see messages ranging from "Buy our water, it's cool and refreshing and comes in a pretty bottle" to "Buy your water, it's cooler and more refreshing, and it comes in an even prettier bottle!"
It's true that products don't sell themselves, but on the other hand some products are dumb enough that even a huge marketing campaign won't make 'em popular, and I'm pretty sure that five-spouted rapper-endorsed water is one of them.
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