Q: How can one lone water utility respond to the continuing stream of promotion coming from the bottled water industry? Lets face it: Perrier spends more on ads in one month then a utility budgets for the whole year.A: With a solution that makes news and meets consumers' demand for better tasting water.
In surveys, we found that while consumers thought tap water is safe, they often drank bottled or filtered water to avoid the chlorine taste of water from a public supply.
The cheapest and easiest way to mask the chlorine taste is to chill the water. So we offered consumers an empty bottle - complete with a handsome label - so they could "Bottle Your Own."
We marketed the offer with direct mail and a modest radio buy. we also sent a media release on our new offer out on a slow news day.
Results: After generating substantial media coverage, during a three year period we distributed some 36,000 empty glass bottles to customers. Follow up surveys indicated consumers changed their behavior to use the bottles on a continuing basis. More important, after getting their bottle they thought better of the water utility/