Concerned with the negative outcomes of drinking high-sugar and caffeine containing soft drinks, consumers have increasingly

looked for healthier alternatives. Marketers have responded by offering diet and lo-cal versions of their existing brands and increasingly, pure packaged drinking water. The Wolf Clinic says that the world market for bottled water is worth $300billion, which is 30 percent higher than the pharmaceuticals industry and growing. Simultaneously, it is also the least regulated industry in the world. The clinic adds that public gullibility and slick advertising lie at the root of the success and growth of bottled water as a fad. According to the Coca-Cola Bottling Company (Coke), its answer to this problem was the launch of its Dasani brand of pure water cleansed by a highly sophisticated purification process based on NASA spacecraft technology (Wolf Clinic, 2012). The brand was highly successful in the U.S., and Coke launched the brand in Europe beginning with the U.K. in 2004. However, stories emerged that Coke was only putting ordinary tap water put through ordinary reverse-osmosis purification process into bottles. The Guardian reported that the water contained a carcinogen. Coke had to withdraw 500,000 bottles from shelves in the UK prompting a prominent marketing expert to comment, "It is now going to be next to impossible for Coke to re-launch Dasani in the UK" (BBC, 2004). We challenge this conclusion, recommend a marketing strategy that will help Coke reenter, and capture the market. The consumer today sees drinking packaged water as cool, which Nick Southgate (2003) describes a distinguishing product attribute that provides a vital competitive edge in viciously competitive markets. Cool is a property of a product or service and encompasses four aspects. Cool implies fresh and new, it makes buyers bond with others as members of a community, cool things are fun, and they give meaning to life (Gloor et al, 2009). While cool is something associated with a particular brand, we can see that it can affect a category of products in competition with others, as the case has been with packaged water. How do we build a cooler brand image within a cool product category? Susan Fournier (1998) sought to equate the equation between consumers and their preferred brands with interpersonal relations between two people. Carrying this concept forward, Holt (2003, p. 175) said that brands form a deep connection with customers in ways conventional marketing paradigms have not addressed thus far and demonstrated this connection between customers and the iconic Coke brand (Holt, 2004). This connection could be easier to make if marketers imbue their brands with a personality that demonstrates behavior, interaction with the environment, and consistency (Yoon et al, 2002). Examples of such animation of the brand are the Michelin Man, the Duracell Rabbit, or the M&M Bars talking with each other. However, consistency, as emphasized by Yoon et al does not appear to hold particularly if we look at Coca Cola itself or Kentucky Fried Chicken shortening the brand name to Coke and KFC respectively to make it easier on the tongue.

We use this understanding and the AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) matrix to suggest a media campaign to accompany the re-launch of the Dasani brand in the UK.

References Wolf Clinic (2012): Bottled Water Wasted Money, Wasted Health, online resource accessed on September 10, 2013 from: http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/index.php/information-and-tools/dr-wolfearticle-archive/253-bottled-water Gloor, P.A.; Krauss, J.S.; & Nann, S. (2009): Coolfarming How cool people create cool trends, online resource accessed on September 10, 2013 from: http://www.ickn.org/documents/edumedia09_coolfarming.pdf Southgate, N. (2003): Coolhunting with Aristotle, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 21(7), pp. 453-61 BBC (2004): Coke recalls controversial water, online resource accessed on September 10, 2013 from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3550063.stm Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research. Journal of Consumer Research 24 (March), 343-373 Holt, D. (2004). How Brands Become Icons. The Principles of Cultural Branding, Harvard Business School Press: Boston. Holt, D. B. (2003). What Becomes an Icon Most? Harvard Business Review, March, 43-49. Yoon, T., Ekinci, Y., and Oppewal, H. (2002). When Are Brands Perceived as Personalities? Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science Conference, Nottingham, UK.