Our spring water fans may find this article from Advertising Age interesting. Naturally my favorite line in linked story: " Interestingly, the bottled-water category, which includes bulk containers, as well as single serve, has been growing, indicating that noise around consumers' perceived environmental concerns has been overblown."

Read the full article here: consumers-drink-soft-drinks-water-beer

From the Vernon Morning Star:

Let’s see if I get this straight.

Two Vernon councillors are lobbying to have bottled water restricted as “Vernon has worked hard to achieve good drinking water.”

I then read that the Interior Health has told the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee, that $20 million is needed to be spent, to bring one of Vernon’s water supplies up to safety standards for drinking water, and at the same time, recommend the raising of water rates, to cover the usage of water by residents.

Nice job people.

Take away a source of good drinking water, but raise taxes and don’t guarantee that the supposed “good drinking water” is actually as good as it is supposed to be.

Also, if I am downtown and thirsty, can I go into either of these councillors' businesses and ask for a drink of “good drinking water,” as I won’t be able to get a bottle of water?

Perhaps city hall will stop what they are doing and give me some water.Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony in this?

Bob Cail

Vernon

I am fairly certain this will not cause the IBWA to consider changing its name to "WUS" . . . . .

EBWA, the European Bottled Watercooler Association, has changed its name to ‘Watercoolers Europe’.

‘WE’ will lead the water cooler industry by promoting high quality standards and enhancing our members’ brand.  EBWA/WE chairman Jeroen Peters

By Bill Bruce:

EBWA’s journey to ‘WE’

EBWA was established in Europe in 1993 as the European chapter of the International Bottled Water Association based in the United States. The establishment of the Brussels office in 1998 was the first turning point for the European industry and for the association.  At that time, the association’s activities were directed at easing the restrictive regulations which impacted bottling in 19 and 22 litres for companies and suppliers active in the emerging bottled watercooler markets.

Another step EBWA’s development took place in June 2000 when it became a founding member of ICBWA – International Council of Bottled Water Associations – consisting of member associations in Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and United States.

Click here to read this article 

Quote of the day: "Where does Breck find this stuff?!"

More seriously, this consumer perception of trust is an important asset when we do battle with local and state governments who want to restrict consumer access to our bottled water products.

Germans Rate Bottled Beverages Higher than Politicians 

By: Thorsten Koenig

Do people have more faith in the quality of bottled water than in their politicians?

By far, according to new research carried out in Germany.

Media Psychology Affiliates recently conducted a wide-ranging study of German public opinion. The goal was to uncover “feeling trends” in an increasing climate of economic instability.

“One thing is clear. Overall confidence in the future has taken a tumble among the German public,” says media psychologist, Dr. James N. Herndon, president of Media Psychology Affiliates. “Considering that Germany remains, by a number of measures, the world’s strongest economy, such a downward trend in confidence is significant.”

Among the findings are those involving food.

“Food quality issues have a high priority among Germans,” explains Dr. Herndon, “even more so than in the USA. For certain food sectors, the level of trust remains extraordinary.”

“For instance, we’ve all heard that Germany is a ‘beer culture.’ Well, Germans’ trust in the quality of beer has never been higher. In fact, beer now ranks at the top of all food products in terms of perceptions of quality. And other bottled beverages, including water, are not far behind. Actually, as a class of food products, bottled beverages in general enjoy the best overall image among foods.”

In comparison, the current study revealed that trust in politicians has never been lower.

“Germans currently have an amazingly low regard for politicians, with less than 20% expressing genuine satisfaction with their ‘quality’. There is certainly a sense of cynicism that we haven’t seen before.”

“When citizens of a country have significantly more trust in a brewery or bakery than in their elected representatives, this is a plain crisis of confidence. But this trend is certainly not limited to Germany.”

“It is clear that the current economic and financial climate is far more volatile than the mainstream media would have us believe. Under certain conditions, many of the trends we uncovered could result in future social unrest. However, Germany is far better prepared than the US to weather such storms.”

Media Psychology Affiliates used Affective Encryption Analysis (AEA), a naturalistic research tool, for data gathering and analysis. AEA focuses on “feeling trends” and emotions, rather than traditional paper-and-pencil or telephone surveys. Data is gathered under “natural” conditions to improve the validity and reliability of results.

ABOUT MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY AFFILIATES
Media Psychology Affiliates is a media research/design and PR/crisis communications firm, with specialties in the worlds of entertainment and politics.

Thorsten Koenig – PR-Management
Thorsten Koenig Media Associates
Mangersreuther Str. 42
D - 95326 Kulmbach
GERMANY

Tel: +49-(0)9221-8780081
Fax: +49-(0)9221-8780082

This was a nice article about Mountain Valley recently published from Organice Your Life magazine.

It is interesting because this organic-themed magazine is pretty strongly against water bottled in plastic. In other words, some of the "antis" out there aren't against bottled water in general - they're just against plastic.

This is a good article for bottled water folks to read on challenges we all face with suggestions on how to convey a message to consumers.

"For example, only 22.5 percent identified polycarbonate as a potential candidate for leaching bisphenol A. Nearly 60 percent weren’t sure what products BPA could leach from, while 28 percent said polyethylene plastics leach BPA, 23 percent said polypropylene could do so, and 9 percent said aluminum cans coated with water-based epoxy could leach BPA."

Read the entire article here:

http://www.plasticsnews.com/

A picture is worth a thousand words . . .

Does this video look familiar? It’s a re-cut of the IBWA InterBev video “Bottled Water: The Big Picture.” This shorter version highlights our environmental and recycling efforts. We call it “Bottled Water Recycles” and it was produced specifically for our sponsorship corner of the “plastic bottles” section of www.Earth911.com which is slated to debut tomorrow. It’s posted on YouTube for easy tracking. So give it a look and please put your thumb in the air. Every click counts and every ‘thumbs’ up’ counts even more.

This is an interesting article, written by Diana Zlomislic, about the cleanliness of spouts on public drinking fountains. They interview the city counselor who promoted the bottled water ban about their findings. 

Read the full Star article here. It will change the way you look at drinking fountains forever.