But while water itself may be simple, the business of bottled water is not. It is big, complicated and competitive, having grown into an almost $ 9 billion a year business in the United States.
The business has been built in large part on savvy marketing, aimed at convincing consumers that not all water is created equal. The pitch seems to have worked.
In the last 30 years, bottled water has emerged from virtually nothing to become the No. 2 beverage in the United States, behind soft drinks. If its current growth patterns hold, bottled water will pass soft drinks in the next 10 to 15 years, said Gary A. Hemphill, spokesman for the Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm.
While the bottled water industry's revenue has grown by almost 800 percent in the last 20 years, so has competition. Hundreds of brands large and small now fight for consumers' loyalty and attention. The branding of bottled water has relied almost exclusively on the perception that it is......
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