Bottled Water in Australia

Bling h2o is a high end or â€Å"Super Luxury† bottled water product created by Kevin G Boyd a Hollywood producer / designer. Bling h2o costs from $US35. 00 to $US2,600. 00 per bottle and the water is bottled into glass bottles studded with Swarovski crystals. Bling has been featured on MTV music awards and The Emmys and on it’s website refers to itself as the Rolls Royce of bottled water. To identify the potential consumers in Australia we need to look at the target market and market segments bling are looking to fulfill. The premium status, and pricing, that bling put on their product would narrow the geographic segment to the economic centers of Australia, which Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. A geographic segmentation is identifying and analysing the location that a company is looking to move into. In Australia a potential geographic profile would start at the state level, then move into cities, then if necessary a municipal level to identify potential consumer (Kotler, P. , Adam, S. , Denize, S. , Armstrong, G. 2009), The demographic make-up of a potential market is made up of the age group, income, occupation, gender, race, education and religion. Demographic segmentation is a popular form of analysis and very important part of identifying the size and methods of communicating with a target market. (Kotler et al, 2009) After reviewing the media on bling and the website the demographic profile for bling would be 20 – 35 year old age bracket with a high level of income. This is supported by bling’s involvement with MTV, The Emmy's and the price of their product. The psychographic and behavioural segmentation bling would be looking at is a benefits viewpoint (Kotler et al, 2009). The benefits class is the benefits the user perceives to obtaining by using the product. The benefits from bling h2o are that of social status and class by drinking bling users would be setting themselves apart. From the marketing segmentation identified bling would be looking at a young high income earners who place a high importance on their external image. Along with targeting the these individuals, 5 star hotels and up market nightclubs would also be consumers of these products due the overlapping target market and perceived image they are looking to convey. This is identified by bling themselves on their ebsite where Boyd had the idea whilst observing celebrities and how each of them treated the bottled water they drunk In 2004 – 2005 Australians consumed about 550 million litres of bottled water, with worldwide consumption growing 57% from 1999 to 154 billion litres. (Munro 2006). The main industry body in Australia is the ABWI which was established 10 years ago and clai ms its objectives are to promote awareness and use of bottled water, and to ensure that consumers have safe good tasting water. The ABWI boasts member such as Coca- Cola Amatil Ltd and Schweppes Australia ttp://www. bottledwater. org. au/scripts/cgiip. exe/WService=ASP0003/ccms. r? Roxy=0x0002f062=10007 Bottled water is being looked at as a serious environmental issue. The main packaging for bottled water is plastic, which is made from fossil fuels and Australia uses 314,000 barrels of oil in bottling water each year (Koutsoukis, 2007) Although the plastic bottled water comes in is recyclable, Australians are only recycling around 35% of the bottled water they purchases, 55% goes to landfill which accounts for 70,000 tonnes of plastic waste. Koutsoukis, 2007) (Munro 2006). It is been seen as such an environmental issue that Bundanoon, a small town in NSW, has banned the sale of bottled water in its stores when a company was looking to extract water from their underground reservoir, and claims to be the first town in the world to enact such a policy. A review of social media surrounding bling h2o a large percentage of blogs condemned bling for being over priced and had concerns about water being sold at such a premium when much of the world is without clean water. An internet blog by Sassisam title Bling H2O – Ego in a bottle. Sassi Sam points out that she consumes 4 bottles of water a day and that would equate to $US980 per week just for water. Sassi Sam concluded that she would consider buying from bling if they supported charities that focused on supplying clean water to those who don’t have access to it. Bling was featured on the site BoingBoing and points out that people who buy this must be fools. The interactive comments section of BoingBoing raised the issues of the importance of social status and that is reaching ridicules levels. BoingBoing was the only website that brought up the issue of socially responsible marketing by user Cameron Barrett. If the author of this article was the brand manager of bling h20 they would be associating themselves with one of the many charitable organisations that are helping provided clean drinking water. An organisation like charity water is able to provide a person with clean drinking water for $1 a year. This small cost compared to the premium charge would quell the concerns over the ethics of the company and leave the image issue with those who buy it. ttp://www. theage. com. au/news/national/bottled-water-the-new-ecodisaster/2006/02/25/ 1140670303250. html http://www. theage. com. au/articles/2007/08/18/1186857841959. html? page=fullpage#contentSwap1 http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8141569. stm http://www. bottledwater. org. au/scripts/cgiip. exe/WService=ASP0003/ccms. r? Roxy=0x0002f062=10007 Kotler, P. , Adam, S. , Denize, S. , Armstrong, G. (2009), Principles of Marketing. Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest