A while ago Desrie from iKineo sent me an email asking if they can drop off a “a product purely for personal consumption”. Cool, free stuff.
Last week I found this big black box on my desk containing 6 bottles of Vitamin Water.
My comments:
The first thing I noticed was the extreme packaging. Not very environmentally friendly, but bold and striking at first glance. I’m pretty sure the packaging cost more than the contents. Don’t worry kids, I recycle.
At further inspection.. I was not that impressed. These people seem to not know what capital letters are for. Not a single capital letter to be found.. other than the “GLACEAU” brand, all upper case.
The wording on the bottles kinda reminds me of a Ford Fairlane quote: reading it was “like masturbating with a cheese grater: slightly amusing, but mostly painful.” It tries to be cute.. I have no idea who they are aiming this at.
Legally we can’t tell you that after drinking this, thelma from brakpan threw a cement mixer across a rugby field, or that this drink gave william from nelspruit enough strength to stop a speeding train.
I kid you not. They actually write this on one of the bottles.. without any capital letters. What are they thinking? It makes no sense. The wording just does not fit the brand and the product. GLACEAU seems like an international brand.. (yup, energybrands.com, US) then you notice it’s made by Coca Cola, locally.. they spell it “coca-cola” though. So, let me try and understand this: using the word “brakpan” will make me associate with your product? Are you insane?
The orange one (c+calcium) was a bit crap, tasted like watered down Barocca.. and the way it permanently changed the coloured the plastic cap was scary.
One of them tasted very nice. The rest of them tasted OK.
Do I think it’s a cool product? I kinda get the idea and yes, sometimes I get bored and don’t know what do drink. Maybe.
Would I buy it? Maybe, would depend on the price vs the price of standard still bottled water. Then again I realise that even the still bottled water (Valpre) I have on my desk today is now a Coca Cola brand.
In the end Vitamin Water is probably the same RO (municipal) water that goes into Coke and Powerade.. Duff light, Duff standard, Duff extra.. all from the same pipe, just a different brand and price.
I hate Coke. Yeah, you got me, I’m one of those people that just distrust big corporations and governments out of basic principle. Trust has shifted people.
Side note: One company that is doing something right is Clover.. I really like their Vanilla Milk and Aquartz Natural Mineral Water.
Hope that was not too harsh. It’s my honest opinion.
Thanks for the free water (-;