"Mineral" Water

Here in Italy there is a titanic struggle, and it's evidenced every time I visit our local supermercato. I watch as Italian mothers line up to check out, and yes, the 'brown death' is there.

Brown death. C___ Cola. Concentrated sugar and acid. Totally unhealthy. But how have they penetrated the bastion of good alkaline mineral water, Italy?

According to fellow traveller Dr. Gerry Brady, the strategy has been sensationally successful.

Gerry says that the multinationals trying to break into the Italian general beverage market were faced with one major problem. Italians know and accept that alkaline mineral water is beneficial for health. They have known it ever since Romans journeyed over 100k from Rome into the hills of Umbria to the source of these springs. The benefits are written into their history. They have known it since the Romans built the world's most sophisticated netwoork of clean mineralised water aqueducts to supply every citizen with unlimited free alkaline spring water from faucets in every street. They have grown up with it. It is their culture.

So when such a belief has so much currency with a 'market', what is the best strategy to sell them an inferior product? I was only 19 when Camel cigarettes advertised 'Not a Single Case of Throat Irritation Due to Smoking Camels.”. A baldfaced lie, but it secured them a sizable market share.

So faced with a superior product, what do you do? First you work out carefully what you may or may not say legally. Then you tailor your story... and then you put it out there.

Oligominerale from an Oligopoly*
Ever heard the word "Oligominerale"? Of course not. In Italian it began appearing on water bottles filled with Coca Cola company supplied filtered tap water. It means 'trace minerals'. Gerry explained that the big C___ Oligopoly used whatever was required to spread the word that excess minerals in your drinking water cause high blood pressure. 

It's not hard. Italians are avid newspaper consumers and TV watchers, and it's common to see full page ads for water companies extolling the virtues of their water. So when ads and sponsored articles began appearing saying it was better to choose 'Oligiminerale' water because trace minerals were not as bad as higher content mineral waters, the relatively unsophisticated general market bought it, hook line and stinker.

The marketers are, as we all know, master manipulators of public perceptions. Once the idea that the 'old nasty' high mineral water were bad for you, it was like a whole paradigm of Italian life blown out the window. The water that had occupied a place on every dinner table was suddenly the enemy. And, as predicted, the 'Oligo's' took its place.... PLUS ordinary C___, the Brown Death, began leaping off the shelves into shopping trolleys that had previously held a six-pack of San Pellegrino.

*As an aside.. an 'Oligopoly" as defined by Wikipedia is:

"..a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers (oligopolists). The word is derived, by analogy with "monopoly", from the Greek ὀλίγοι (oligoi) "few" + πόλειν(pólein) "to sell". Because there are few sellers, each oligopolist is likely to be aware of the actions of the others. The decisions of one firm influence, and are influenced by, the decisions of other firms. Strategic planning by oligopolists needs to take into account the likely responses of the other market participants."

How apt.. a Freudian slip perhaps by C___ strategists, or is it just a poke in the eye wit.h a sharp stick? Using the word that describes them to slash their way into a local market.

The Bottom Line..

Does higher mineral content in water cause health problems? Gabe Hunninghake, my counterpart in AlkaStream USA, did a little research.
Here's the result. Make up your own mind.

And for anyone interested in Italian water requirements, here's another Wiki page but you'll need to use Google Translate.