An example of Marketing Genius

Lying in bed over the weekend listening to the rain beating down on the roof and hearing the local stream turning into a raging torrent, my mind turned to things marketing, as it does, and I thought about the marketing genius behind the successful introduction of something that is not actually needed (particularly here in New Zealand) but is a product that has increased its marketing share every year since its inception – bottled water.

Now I can see the point of bottled water if I am trekking through the Australian desert or am looking for something refreshing to drink in a country with little rainfall and no council supplied water system but am not so sure it is needed in New Zealand where the quality of water supply is the third highest in the world. Despite this the public of New Zealand spent around $65,000,000 on bottled water last year.

Consider why? The average cost of a litre of water to your house supply is between 0.2 and 0.3 cents. So you can get the equivalent of a 750ml water bottle for about 1,000th of the cost. We complain about spending $2.00 on a litre of petrol (something that has been refined from crude oil and in a lot of cases shipped from the other side of the world) but happily part with $3.00 to purchase less than a litre of the stuff that comes out of the tap at the side of the petrol pump.

So why is this possible, Marketing is the answer.

We have been told that bottled water is better for us, it isn’t really – much of the bottled water is sourced from the town supply. Many mineral waters contain more trace elements than would be allowed in town water but we still believe it is better for us, once again it all comes down to the marketing of the product.

So if marketing genius can result in a great many of the population paying a 1,000 times more for a common product have a think about what a bit of marketing genius could do for your business and contact us to discuss the idea further