“Uhhhh… It’s Water.”

Posted By elissa on Jun 12, 2013 | 7 comments

The title of this post was Number One Son’s response after I described Nestlé’s newest bottled water product, “Resource,” to him, while we were between leg press sets at the gym.

According to Nestlé, however, it’s not just any ol’ bottled water! It’s…

“…a premium water made specifically for ‘a woman who is a little more on the trendy side and higher-income side,’ according to Larry Cooper, group marketing manager for Resource.

Resource is more than just a beverage, it’s a reflection of who you are as a woman in the very deepest and most personal sense of your very being, as Cooper went on to explain to the New York Times: ‘We want to raise it to the level of a lifestyle brand,’ he said, ‘where she’s proud to carry around Resource as her bottled water accessory, so to speak.'”

Oh yeah, that’s just what I need to be (proudly!) packing around the gym with me: a “bottled water accessory” that reflects my woman-ness in “the very deepest and most personal sense of [my] very being.”

Personally, I think the above quote is pretty darned funny, just by itself. When paired with this bizarre promotional video, however, Nestlé’s marketing strategy rises to the level of “What the hell were they smoking and can I get some, please?”

So this is “electrolytenment?” It looks more like “The Cirque du Soleil Takes a Shower.”

This absurd product pitch reminds me of an anecdote told by Dave Marinaccio, in his book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Star Trek.” When he wrote the book he was (and still is) a creative director for an advertising firm.

“To produce vodka in the United States of America, you must follow very restrictive rules. These rules require that the vodka be both odorless and tasteless. The rules work. In blind taste tests, American vodkas are indistinguishable from each other.

I learned this amazing piece of trivia in a conference room at an advertising agency in Chicago. This information was considered important because our job was to convince consumers that the vodka we were advertising was the best-tasting.

Our task was not impossible, though. You see, the very same consumers who could not distinguish a taste difference between vodkas in a blind taste test could find wide differences in taste when there were labels on the bottles. Since our bottle had a label on it, we were confident that we could become the best-tasting vodka.

The researcher who told us these wondrous facts closed the meeting with a phrase that is an advertising mantra. She said, ‘Perception is reality.’ Her point was that we should treat these taste differences as if they were real.

To reinforce the perceived differences, we would create a ‘point of difference’ from other brands of vodka. In our case, we would tell the public that our special filtering process is what produces the smooth, smooth taste you can find only in our bottles. Ironically, it is the filtering that makes all American vodkas absolutely tasteless. But hey, perception is reality.”

Yup – perception is reality. But you can only push that so far… as Marinaccio’s creative team found out when the vodka didn’t sell and the brand went under. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if “Resource” meets a similar fate. It may have a pretty label, but so what? I think most women (“trendy” or not) will see through the BS and call it just as Number One Son did: “uhhh… it’s water.”