Bottled water companies seem to be everywhere. You cannot go into a store of some sort without seeing at least three or four different brands of bottled water. The rational and logical person often asks, "What is the point?" Water is water, after all, and whether it comes from a cool mountain spring hidden in the highlands of the Rockies or whether it comes from a bubbling brook deep in the verdant forests of Canada makes no real difference to the product at the end of the day. Most people know this, yet the bottled water companies still market their products from all theses different angles. Well, not all of them.
There are some bottled water companies who do not cater, as it were, to the public like most do. There is an interesting growth in the bottled water market where bottling company actually markets their products to other companies that have no connection with bottled water whatsoever. Companies like real estate agents, gyms, insurance companies, and even some schools. They offer bottled water that is personalized to the image of their client. They bottle the water from their hidden spring or cool mountain stream and then apply the necessary labels - often made to specification - and sell it to these companies that want the personalized water.
Why would a company buy personalized water from bottled water companies in the first place? The answer is simple: marketing. Take a real estate agent, for example. If a real estate agent shows someone a house they can offer him or her a bottle of water at no charge as a 'present' or 'gift'. The bottle has the real estate's details and possibly his company's logo on it as well. The water bottle becomes, as it were, the business card of the real estate agent, but also becomes an incentive to do business with that particular estate agent. After all, he or she did just give you this nifty bottle of water and lots of people tend to use water bottles over and over again if they can.
Bottled water companies who offer this service understand the value that a free gift can have as a marketing device. They allow companies that do not necessarily have the advantage of offering anything interesting or useful to have something that most people will appreciate. After all, all people need to drink water whether they like it or not. The real estate agent may give it away as a gift but a gym might sell the bottled water to their customers. Either way, their name is still being used over and over again.
While some bottled water companies are selling to the masses of people who need water to survive, some are helping other companies market themselves a little better. Personalized bottled water may at first sound a little silly, but when you think about the possibilities you will soon realize that the potential, as far as marketing is concerned, is quite large.
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