Company #1: Turn Tap Water Into Premium Flat and Bubbly Water, via "The iPod of Water Coolers"
Posted by Peter Armstrong Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:12:00 GMT
Problem:
Bottled water, both in individual bottles of still and bubbly water and in the corporate water cooler, is extremely wasteful and harmful to the environment. However, while this is a growing perception, it is still not the prevailing view. Also, there is no compelling alternative: tap water doesn't have Apple quality marketing behind it.
Solution:
There needs to be a company that sells a machine which is a water cooler which turns ordinary tap water into premium tasting flat and bubbly water. It would also sell the custom branded filters and carbonation replacements.
The industrial design should be essentially WWAD: "What Would Apple Design?" This would be the ultimate geek + environmentalist lifestyle purchase. Everything about the machine and its consumables should be priced at a premium. The competition is not Brita: it is the corporate water cooler and expensive bottled water.
The marketing is extremely simple.
For companies: Companies will want to buy it to show how environmentally sensitive they are. The traditional water cooler will go from an automatic part of a standard office to a sign of environmental insensitivity, even hostility. In terms of getting this message out, all that needs to happen is for this product to be placed in a few select offices (e.g. Apple, Google). If Steve Jobs makes a pointed remark to a reporter about how much environmentally better Apple is than, say, Dell, because of all the bottled water it doesn't use, the press would write itself.
For individuals: Every Prius owner will want one. If an individual drinks lots of bottled water, it will be cost-effective. Even if it's not (or is just barely), it is a way to make an environmental statement with a purchase.
For restaurants: A restaurant can place it conspicuously to show how much better for the environment it is compared to its competitors. The restaurant could even charge for the water (for the bubbly water, anyway).
This is probably some of the lowest hanging fruit there is in terms of reducing environmental impact, since it has the potential to greatly reduce the massive harm created by the bottled water industry. (The recycling "R" has gotten all the press because it's hard to sell products for the reduce "R"; this changes that.)
Heck, buying this product should be worth carbon credits.
The great thing is that this can greatly reduce the harm we are doing to the environment with just some good industrial design and marketing, and with no breakthrough technology required.
Distribution of the machine and its consumables should be easy: Whole Foods should jump at a chance for a partnership. (If they don't, some other grocery store chain which wants to be greener than Whole Foods should do it.)
I used to drink a lot of bottled water, especially bubbly water. The cost was a bit annoying, but not as much as the environmental guilt...
