One in a series of posts celebrating World Tap Water Week at Green Thing.
The bottled water industry tell lies. They want you to believe that you’ll be smarter, sexier, healthier and generally just a better human being if you drink bottled water. It’s madness. Here are seven of the most criminal mineral ads.
1. Did you know VitaminWater can make you a high flying professional basketball player turned lawyer? True Story, it happened to LeBron James.
2. Fiji: where every drop is green. Starting from the moment it’s put into plastic bottles to when it’s flown in on an airplane from the South Pacific.
3. Cubehead is Drench’s viral video. Despite the fact that Stephen Fry has tweeted about it (which apparently gives things street cred these days) this video tells us nothing new: “Brains perform best when they’re hydrated”. Yes, tap water hydrates as well — and it’s free and clean.
4. Dear Perrier, we are all familiar with the concept that sex sells. Although your ad gains a lot of attention with its interactive striptease with Dita, you’re not fooling anyone. Yours truly, Loyal to the Tap.
5. Nothing like the winning duo of bottled water and air travel. Green Thing spotted these a while ago, and they never cease to amaze.
6. Did someone day Greenwash? GREENWASH!
7. Smart Water. It makes you..er.. smart.
Honourable mentions
This list could be exhaustive so we’ll just limit it to a few:
Paul Smith has designed an Evian bottle with his signature stripe and explains that Evian is a superior form of water. Trust him, he’s been drinking it since he was 11. Sadly, this was one of the most viewed videos online in 2009.
Yes, this is actually serious.
(This post is part of a series on Green Thing for World Tap Water Week. Find out more!)
Katherine Hui is currently the Social site editor at Green Thing, a web-based public service in London that inspires people to lead greener lives through creative content.
Before this, she worked as the Development Manager at Social Innovation Camp, an organization that encourages people to use web and mobile-based technology to mobilise social change. She oversaw 300 ideas submission and helped build 20 prototypes – five of which have gone on to get further funding or investment.
Katherine’s came over to the UK form Canada in 2007 for an MSc program at the London School of Economics. Before arriving in London, she managed a small environmental start-up in Vancouver called the Canadian Climate Change Alliance.
Katherine is football mad. She is a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC, plays for Islington Borough Ladies FC and coaches for Gunners in Islington in her spare time. Her second favourite hobby is kite surfing and she can sometimes be found chasing the wind.
