Earlier this month, a new report from the Beverage Marketing Corporation found that annual bottled water consumption surpassed that of soda for the first time in 2016, with 39.3 gallons consumed per capita versus carbonated soft drinks’ 38.5 gallons. “Water became No. 1 last year on a volumetric basis,” explained Michael Bellas, chairman, CEO of the Beverage Marketing Corporation. “It’s being driven by health and wellness trends, it’s natural, local and has this wonderful good for you halo. It hits all of those buzzwords.”
But what can be said of this seeming marketing boom? “The marketing support [for water brands] has been relatively small,” said Bellas. “It’s a very tiny amount compared to the other beverage categories, but certain companies are really leading it—Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé. It’s not so much that the category is exploding but that certain companies are spending more.”
That thinking checks out according to data from Kantar Media. Spending for the bottled water category for the first 11 months of 2016 was $118.7 million versus $807 million for carbonated soft drinks. The top three bottled waters (Propel, Aquafina Sparkling and Smartwater) spent $44.3 million in the first 11 months of 2016. During that same period in 2015, that trio spent just $24.5 million, which means that the brands’ parents (Propel and Aquafina are owned by PepsiCo, Smartwater is part of Coca-Cola) nearly doubled spending from 2015 to 2016.
But it isn’t just about spending more; it’s about creating a brand that consumers want to connect with, explained Nestlé Waters’ CMO Antonio Sciuto. “What’s happening in the consumer landscape is that consumers are increasingly growing cautious in what they are eating and what they are drinking,” said Sciuto. (Nestlé Waters’ brands include Deer Park, Arrowhead, Perrier and San Pellegrino.) “The new focus on wellness is changing the habits of the American consumer where they are consuming more fluid, more vegetables and a lot more water.”
With the wellness trend in full force, selling water to health-conscious consumers shouldn’t prove too difficult. For marketers, the challenge ahead will be figuring out how to steer those consumers to specific brands.
Article Appeared @http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/as-soda-sales-suffer-beverage-marketers-are-shifting-to-a-new-stream-of-income-water/