H two oh
Bling h20 anyone? It’s only $31 dollars a bottle. I was in the grocery store the other day and walked down the beverage aisle and surprisingly the beautiful bottles of water stopped me in my tracks. The sleek and elegant design of these bottles of water begs to be purchased even though they can cost up to $50 dollars a pop. Why is there such an insane trend in luxury water? Yes, luxury water. Can you believe it? I think it’s all about the perception of these products. I bet plain H2O tastes tastes just like the more expensive version if it were served from a glass and a crystal-encrusted bottle. I often find myself suckered into purchasing products because of the packaging. As designers, we are all about beautiful presentation and well-packaged products. However, I ask myself, is bottling water in an elegant package and charging people a fortune over doing it a little? I do have to say though…these bottles are so very pretty.
Christian Lacroix doesn’t just design high end fashion but apparently he also designed the limited edition Evian bottle in an attempt to “premiumise” their product. These can be bought in cases of 12 for $118.00 a case or $9.83 for a 750ml bottle of water.
For this upcoming Christmas, Evian has asked Jean Paul Gaultier, Hermès creative director, to design their limited edition bottles.
Americans drank more than 9 billion gallons of bottled water in 2007 with a typical cost of $3.79 per gallon which is 1,900 times the cost of public tap water. “We’ve come to pay good money-two or three or four times the cost of gasoline–for a product we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes.” -fastcompany
“Year after year, bottled water companies have told us that their water was somehow healthier or better for us than our own water. They spent billions of dollars on marketing to make us believe that we needed exotic water, in sleek packaging, from far away Arctic glaciers, tropical islands, and European volcanoes.” –TAP’D. I’m kind of confused with this marketing campaign…so is TAP’D basically packaging the water that we could get for free from the facet, branding it with some typography, and selling it to consumers?
Plup Water is bottled spring water from the Anttila well in Lestijärvi, Finland. What a beautiful yet disturbing photograph. Apparently, It’s actually possible to make a water bottle exude sex appeal.
What about this photograph…Boys, does this make you want to drink Bling h20?
The fabulous, Ji Lee, took on branding the Tap Project. The Tap Project seeks donations to help Unicef provide relief for children around the world who suffer from water crisis. Can you believe that $1 dollar can provide 40 days of clean drinking water for a child in need? And here we are splurging on bottled water and taking it for granted. eek.
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Yep. I have been complaining about this for atleast 14 years. I remember when water used to be 10 cents. A bottle that is. What is going on? For reals. And yet, I cave in to. Because when I go to the supermarket, I have no intention of buying some flavored, high calorie drink. I just want clean water. But what is this? It costs 1$? Jeez. And I am buying poland spring or something like that. But this whole luxury stuff, I have never seen this before and I actually hope I dont come across it for I can see myself filling with rage. What has become of this world? My buddy nikki introduced me to the sigg last year. I have been trying to be better about it. But still, sometimes I am thirsty and wish for nothing but a glass of water. And yet, I cough up the 1$. And worse yet, for some horrible packaging. I don’t get that Tap’d stuff either. What the heck. Or bling on the butt? Jeez. Well, thanks anyways Crystal. I’ll be filling up the sigg again tomorrow with some nice tap water.
Crystal this is superb study of an absurd trend. Something tells me that with the coming freshwater shortage crisis the premiums on water will rise. This probably explains the thinking behind brands like Tap’d.
Honestly, I’ve listened to some environmentalists warns us about this being the next apocalypse and it is strangely scary. To think that we soon will make scarce something so simple as water… I think it should egg us all on to innovate and really reconsider the basics in our life.
On another note — the image of a raging Cro in the aisles of a supermarket is priceless.
How does this work in San Francisco with their bottled water ban? Oh, I guess only the government officials can’t use city funds to purchase the bling water …
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/san_francisco_m.php
Thats a good question, Kristen. I’m not to familiar with how that works. I thought it was just that people who worked in city hall weren’t allowed to bring water bottles to work. I guess they could do whatever they wanted outside of work time.