Tip of the Hat: VitaminWater

By Eli Altman
June 18, 2009
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Filed under Branding, Positioning
VitaminWater: fine tuning your body may or may not need. Photo: vitaminwater.com

Today I want to give a Tip of the Hat to . While Gatorade simply replenishes what you lose when you sweat, VitaminWater’s functional flavors offer much more targeted help. (Who knows if it actually does anything, but the placebo effect is not to be underestimated.) They also made some very smart partnerships with very popular athletes like David Wright and most of the US Olympic Basketball team (Kobe, LeBron, D-Wade, Melo, Chris Paul and Deron Williams.) I’m sure this wasn’t cheap, but it certainly appears to be getting under Gatorade’s neon-colored skin. Pepsi, the owner of Gatorade, tried to fire back with Life Water under the SoBe brand, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single person actually drinking Life Water in public. Either way, it’s nice to finally see a suitable challenger to Gatorade’s dominance. Since Coke owns VitaminWater, this should prove to be an interesting new battleground for the sugar water giants.

The commercials for VitaminWater10 are pretty funny too—although the concept of drinking VitaminWater10 instead of water is slightly sickening. While the health benefits are trivial at best, the naming and branding are great. These guys definitely know what they’re doing, and for that, we tip our hats.

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