Drinking Water (24 page)

And tho’ all the while it grew hotter and hotter
,

They swam, just as if they were hunting an Otter
;

T’was a glorious sight to behold the fair sex

All wading with gentlemen up to their necks
.

And today many persons of rank and condition

Were boiled by command of an able physician
.

Similar stories of spa towns could be told of Contrexéville, Évian-les-Bains, or Vittel in France. The French government passed decrees in 1781 and 1856 declaring these waters of “public interest” for their medicinal benefits. Vichy, in particular, became favored by French returning from overseas colonies and hoping to regain their health after the rigors of serving in tropical Asia or Africa. New York’s Saratoga Springs, long famed for its horse racing, first attracted visitors because of the more than one hundred mineral springs in the area. Diamond Jim Brady, the celebrated magnate of the Gilded Age, was a regular luminary in the 1890s. Nearly a century later, James Bond enjoyed the social scene on behalf of Her Majesty’s Secret Service in the novel
Diamonds Are Forever
.

Spa towns reached their zenith in the nineteenth century, as railways made travel easier for the wealthy and affordable for the cost-conscious. Ornate hotels, decked with marble, stained glass, and great rooms, became the norm. Promenades, casinos, theaters, and concert halls provided a range of entertainments, all so the well-dressed visitors could see and be seen. Amid this swirl of activity, the central attraction remained the health benefits of “taking the waters.”

If the waters were so valuable, a question naturally arose: Could one not only take the waters at the spa but, quite literally, take the waters home with you, as well?

If there is a dollar to be made, clever people will figure it out. The business plan of holy wells one thousand years earlier played out yet again. Just as enterprising priests in the eighth and ninth centuries had transformed local monasteries near popular springs into wealthy abbeys, so, too, did local businessmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transform spa towns into resort destinations. And, of particular importance for our story, just as the holy sites created specially branded flasks to sell water from holy wells to the pilgrims, so, too, did spas develop a vigorous trade in bottled mineral waters.

Until well into the 1800s, bottled water was uncommon except for the wealthy. Produced by hand and in small quantities, the glass
and stoneware bottles were sealed by porcelain or cork. Tradition holds that Benjamin Franklin was responsible for the first imported bottled waters to America: impressed by the spring water during his service as ambassador to France during the American Revolution, he arranged for the shipment of a supply to Philadelphia upon his return, delighting his dining companions with French wine
and
French water.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, bottled water was becoming available to the average consumer. In 1845, Poland Spring sold its first bottled water in a three-gallon clay jug. Vittel bottled its waters for sale in 1855, Deer Park followed in 1873, and Arrowhead in 1894. Rapid advances in bottling technology and industrial processes allowed large-scale production of bottled water that remained safe to drink for long periods of time far from its original source. Vichy bottles were popular in French colonies. The German water Appollinaris became a favorite not only in Britain but in the American West, as well, where it was offered on railroad cars. The famed French scientist Louis Pasteur would order cases of his cherished Badoit water ten at a time.

The rapid growth of the bottled water market can be attributed to a number of fortunate events. Bottling technology was one, of course, but the growth of railroads also played a role. Dependable rail lines to spa towns brought more people to spas, which increased the interest in and knowledge of their waters. Freight rail made transport of heavy bottles feasible and affordable. For the first time, large amounts of bottled mineral water could be transported far distances to people who had enjoyed the waters at their origin or, even more important, had never even visited there at all. For these customers, marketing was critical, and nowhere is this more evident than in the rise of the most famous pedigree of bottled water, Perrier.

The carbonated waters from the town of Vergèze, close to Nimes in southern France, have been celebrated since Roman times. The general of elephant fame, Hannibal, is reputed to have enjoyed the spring’s waters when marching to Rome in 218 BC.
In 1863, the French emperor, Napoleon III, granted Dr. Alphonse Granier, former mayor of Vergèze, permission to sell waters from the local spring that formerly had been free for the taking. Granier’s business venture offered not only bottled water but also showers, mud baths, and “inhalations” of the waters. His first slogan was “The Princess of Table Waters.” Granier hired Louis Perrier, a young doctor interested in the use of hydrotherapy to treat arthritis, to help run the spa. Three decades later, Perrier and a group of financial supporters recognized the market potential of its waters and purchased the spring, increasing the bottling operations. Seeking additional capital, Perrier joined forces with a young Englishman, Saint-John Harmsworth, who had been impressed with the waters while traveling in France. Harmsworth’s family had made a fortune in the newspaper business, publishing the London
Daily Mail
and
Daily Telegraph
. Seeking to create his own success, Harmsworth sold his interests in the family business and bought the spring outright.

Harmsworth was paralyzed below the waist, the victim of what must have been one of the very first car accidents. He chose to keep the Perrier name but create a new brand image for what he now called “The Champagne of Bottled Waters.” His inspiration for the unique Perrier bottles supposedly came from the Indian clubs he used in physical therapy. Under Harmsworth’s management, sales by his new Compagnie de la Source Perrier rocketed, reaching eighteen million bottles by the 1930s. Ironically, his French spring water was most popular in the British Empire, where, it was said, there was no substitute for Perrier when mixing whisky.

Perrier was the first of many such success stories to come. One of the most popular Italian bottled waters of the time was Ferrarelle. As with Perrier, Ferrarelle was marketed through two different but complementary strategies. Relying on its origins as therapeutic waters, Ferrarelle publicity emphasized its medicinal properties. An early ad declared, “Ferrarelle battles stomach problems. It is unique, unsurpassable and unmistakable. If you have stomach problems but do not try this water, you deprive yourself of the greatest of fortunes,
your health.” This strategy targeted the traditional market of medicinal waters for sale in pharmacies.

The other market, new but growing, was intended for the table. As Perrier’s “Princess of Table Waters” branding made clear, bottled water was making its way to the dining room. Thus a 1904 ad praised Ferrarelle as “a sole superior quality table water. … It is cold, clear, completely colorless and odor free, effervescent, fresh-tasting, pleasant, acidic, bubbly.” As bottled waters became commonplace at restaurants and dinner tables across Europe, discrim i nating diners favored particular waters’ sparkling qualities and taste. And it was a growing market. France alone had 188 brands, and Germany more than 300 brands of bottled water.

In much of America, by contrast, the idea of drinking bottled water for pleasure would have seemed as odd as serving hay for the salad course. The primary market was medicinal. What fledgling market there had been for quenching thirst was dealt a severe blow by the introduction of chlorine into municipal water systems in the 1920s. The very idea of chlorination, safe water from a tap, was revolutionary and came to be seen as more stylish than bottled waters—quite an irony, given the trendy image of bottle water compared to boring tap water seventy years later.

Through most of the 1900s, while local brands enjoyed a loyal customer base, there were only two major markets in America for bottled water: the traditional therapeutic trade in pharmacies and five-gallon office water jugs. The idea of hanging out at the office water cooler has fallen out of popular usage recently, but for decades it was the central meeting point for workplace gossip. The consumer market for bottles of water, though, remained tiny.

T
HE ORIGIN OF THE MODERN MARKET THAT WE KNOW TODAY
, where bottled water slugs toe-to-toe with soft drinks as America’s favorite beverage, dates to 1976 and the transatlantic marketing launch of Perrier. The challenge was clear. As Kim Jeffery, the
CEO of Nestlé Waters North America, later described, back in the 1970s Perrier was basically unknown: “People didn’t know whether to put it in their lawn mower or drink it.” Seeking to move from a small number of fancy restaurants to mass market, Perrier used the largest advertising budget ever by a bottled water company to position its product as a healthy and chic drink. The face of the campaign was the famed actor and director Orson Welles. Rotund and deep-voiced, Welles rhapsodized about a special site in the south of France, where “there is a spring and its name is Perrier.” Moving beyond its elitist image, Perrier’s branding emphasized the healthy aspects of its product. It sponsored the New York City Marathon in 1979, where six thousand runners crossed the line in Perrier T-shirts.

Lucky timing proved crucial to Perrier’s success. Its marketing campaign coincided with the unexpected explosion of interest in fitness. Aerobics classes were packed with tight-fitting leotards and pounding music. Jim Fixx’s simply titled book
The Complete Book of Running
topped the best-seller list for an improbable eleven weeks. The health craze sweeping the nation fit perfectly Perrier’s positioning as a classy alternative to sugar-filled, fattening soda. The brand’s growth was rapid—from a mere half a million bottles in 1974 to 157 million in 1989, an increase of more than three-hundred-fold. In short order, Perrier grew synonymous with bottled water, holding prime place in an extremely fragmented market.

Other bottled water companies followed Perrier’s example. As San Pellegrino’s U.S. manager later described, “That was what everyone else was doing, advertising that [mineral water] is a healthy thing to drink, as opposed to a soft drink. The category had an exercise and fitness orientation.” As with Perrier, there was a dual strategy. San Pellegrino sought to use its position on restaurant menus as branding. Waiters were instructed not only to pour water in glasses but also to keep the bottle and its label on the table. San Pellegrino did not have a big advertising budget, so they used the dining experience as a marketing opportunity—“putting our liter bottle package on the table, handling it like a fine wine [would]
enhance consumer awareness.” By the end of the 1980s, bottled water had become a mass-market beverage seen as both healthy and chic, and the best seemed yet to come.

In February 1990, however, an unexpected test result threatened the very future of Perrier and the bottled water industry. A lab in North Carolina had decided to use Perrier as a control for other samples, assuming its purity would provide a baseline for testing the pollution of other water sources. After all, Perrier’s brand identity was its pure spring in that special place in France, virgin and unpolluted. To the lab technicians’ surprise, they found traces of the cancer-causing chemical benzene in the Perrier samples. Additional tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed benzene levels in some bottles up to four times the maximum contaminant level allowed in public drinking water supplies.

Perrier’s first responses blamed the contamination on U.S. bottling procedures rather than the source. Ultimately, though, to reassure its customers it recalled seventy million bottles and was off market shelves for eleven weeks. The
New York Times
reported that, when told of the recall, André Soltner, owner of the trendy Lutèce restaurant in Manhattan, exclaimed, “Oh, my God,” followed soon after by the optimistic observation, “Maybe we’ll sell some wine now.” Perrier’s recall may have saved the brand and the market. The intense media coverage had the unexpected effect of
increasing
interest in the bottled water market. While Perrier’s sales took a massive hit, the sector redoubled its dramatic climb. The climb this time, however, was fueled not by clever marketing by a small foreign company but by the brute power of multinational corporate giants.

The success of Perrier was carefully followed in boardrooms, and the opportunity for growth in the U.S. market was too good to pass up. The Swiss food and beverage company Nestlé purchased the Perrier brand in 1992. Two years later, PepsiCo entered the bottled water market. In 1997, within months of each other, Pepsi launched the Aquafina brand and the Coca-Cola Company launched Dasani. Backed by their powerful network of distributors and retailers throughout the country, Dasani and Aquafina quickly
gained market share and are currently the two leading brands in the country. Bolstered by Perrier, Nestlé remains the largest global player in bottled water, closely trailed by Danone, which sells brands such as Evian and Badoit, the favored drink of Louis Pasteur a century ago.

The strategy and marketing of bottled water have been stunningly effective. Consider that, across America, people are opening about 1,500 bottles of water
every second
. Here are some illuminating statistics:

• Over the past two decades, the bottled water market has been the fastest-growing drinks segment in the world.

• Three hundred million gallons of bottled water were sold in the 1970s. That figure has grown thirtyfold, to roughly nine billion gallons sold annually.

• More than half of Americans drink bottled water and more than one-third do so more than once a week. The average American drinks thirty gallons of bottled water per year, mostly from single-serve plastic bottles.