And it isn't just Wimbledon and hot weather that have made more people wake up to its benefits, says Patrick Kalotis
Staring out of the window at the pouring rain it's difficult to believe the extraordinary spell of good weather we've just enjoyed. A quick scan of last week's grocery sales figures for Danone Waters UK - an astonishing 51% uplift on the same week in 2008 - serves as a useful reminder, but doesn't tell the full story.
Evian and Volvic were in growth well before the good weather, suggesting a very different underlying cause: consumers are beginning to understand the importance of bottled water in healthy hydration.
While competition remains as fierce as ever, the decline in sales is showing clear signs of reversing. In fact, weekly category sales have been above 2008 levels for three of the past four weeks. Critics of bottled water will no doubt hope that this is just a spike, and it would certainly be hard to maintain the momentum of the past few weeks, but there is every sign that consumers are re-appraising bottled water.
The category as a whole has been promoting, but there has been plenty of activity above the line as well, some of it highly innovative. Take the Volvic Challenge campaign, which has propelled Volvic to 13% growth year-on-year and almost doubled market share from about 12% in March to 21% in June. In Tesco alone, the campaign generated 3.3 million litres of incremental sales!
This is very significant, since it shows the lasting benefit to be gained from a message that is not about style or exclusivity but health and hydration. The Volvic Challenge invited consumers to drink 1.5 litres of Volvic a day to "feel better in body and mind" - and they did. It was one of the most successful campaigns Danone Waters UK has ever run, and this is partly because it's so well in tune with the public mood.
Indeed, this buying behaviour is just the latest evidence of a growing awareness of dehydration as a health issue in the UK and of an understanding that we simply don't need to drink in calories in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages. Recent media reports have also highlighted the advantages of water in terms of dental health.
We believe the tide is turning. For two years, almost exclusively hostile media has tried to portray bottled water as a pointless luxury whose impact on the environment is in-excusable given that we are blessed with potable tap water.
This is just lazy thinking. Not only is the carbon footprint of our category tiny, in both absolute and relative terms, this argument ignores the indisputable fact that when people stop drinking bottled water they tend to migrate to other, less healthy beverages that are always a worse environmental choice. It also entirely misses the point that about half of sales are to people on the go, to whom tap water is rarely available. In short, the only alternative to bottled water is no water at all.
So as a category we are fighting back. Danone Waters will be verifiably carbon neutral by 2011 and we will soon recycle one PET bottle for every bottle we import into the UK.
Evian has just completed the second year of its sponsorship of Wimbledon and it is no coincidence that the brand enjoyed its best month ever in June. But while the exposure of SW19 was a huge boon, it is the importance of healthy hydration that will mean game, set and match for bottled water.
Patrick Kalotis is marketing director of Danone Waters (UK & Ireland).
Staring out of the window at the pouring rain it's difficult to believe the extraordinary spell of good weather we've just enjoyed. A quick scan of last week's grocery sales figures for Danone Waters UK - an astonishing 51% uplift on the same week in 2008 - serves as a useful reminder, but doesn't tell the full story.
Evian and Volvic were in growth well before the good weather, suggesting a very different underlying cause: consumers are beginning to understand the importance of bottled water in healthy hydration.
While competition remains as fierce as ever, the decline in sales is showing clear signs of reversing. In fact, weekly category sales have been above 2008 levels for three of the past four weeks. Critics of bottled water will no doubt hope that this is just a spike, and it would certainly be hard to maintain the momentum of the past few weeks, but there is every sign that consumers are re-appraising bottled water.
The category as a whole has been promoting, but there has been plenty of activity above the line as well, some of it highly innovative. Take the Volvic Challenge campaign, which has propelled Volvic to 13% growth year-on-year and almost doubled market share from about 12% in March to 21% in June. In Tesco alone, the campaign generated 3.3 million litres of incremental sales!
This is very significant, since it shows the lasting benefit to be gained from a message that is not about style or exclusivity but health and hydration. The Volvic Challenge invited consumers to drink 1.5 litres of Volvic a day to "feel better in body and mind" - and they did. It was one of the most successful campaigns Danone Waters UK has ever run, and this is partly because it's so well in tune with the public mood.
Indeed, this buying behaviour is just the latest evidence of a growing awareness of dehydration as a health issue in the UK and of an understanding that we simply don't need to drink in calories in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages. Recent media reports have also highlighted the advantages of water in terms of dental health.
We believe the tide is turning. For two years, almost exclusively hostile media has tried to portray bottled water as a pointless luxury whose impact on the environment is in-excusable given that we are blessed with potable tap water.
This is just lazy thinking. Not only is the carbon footprint of our category tiny, in both absolute and relative terms, this argument ignores the indisputable fact that when people stop drinking bottled water they tend to migrate to other, less healthy beverages that are always a worse environmental choice. It also entirely misses the point that about half of sales are to people on the go, to whom tap water is rarely available. In short, the only alternative to bottled water is no water at all.
So as a category we are fighting back. Danone Waters will be verifiably carbon neutral by 2011 and we will soon recycle one PET bottle for every bottle we import into the UK.
Evian has just completed the second year of its sponsorship of Wimbledon and it is no coincidence that the brand enjoyed its best month ever in June. But while the exposure of SW19 was a huge boon, it is the importance of healthy hydration that will mean game, set and match for bottled water.
Patrick Kalotis is marketing director of Danone Waters (UK & Ireland).
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