For Dasani, Every Day is Halloween

Group demands Coke stop disguising the source of its water

Contact:
John Stewart, 857-413-6261
Nick Guroff, 617-695-2525

For Immediate Release: October 28, 2009

Boston, MA – Today the Coca-Cola corporation heard from hundreds of people nationwide that it's time the bottling giant labeled the source of its Dasani bottled water. Corporate Accountability International supporters across the country took to the streets dressed in “tap water” t-shirts and suit coats to generate phone calls and letters to Coke executives.

“Coke’s been dressing up tap water as Dasani for more than a decade,” said Kristin Urquiza, an organizer with Corporate Accountability International. “We figured it was about time Dasani’s PR team received its due on the mother of all dress-up days.”

Corporate Accountability International has compelled other leading bottlers Nestlé and Pepsi to label the source of their bottled water brands in recent years, albeit without donning costumes. But Coke has dragged its feet, even as Congress has echoed the organization’s demand that bottlers be transparent about the source of their water.

Instead of responding to popular demand that the corporation cease its misleading marketing, Coke has pumped more money into marketing the fledgling brand. This October, Coke reported a 19 percent nosedive in Dasani sales from the same period last year.

And the forecast doesn’t appear to be improving no matter how much money Coke throws at it. A recent Harris poll found that close to one in three Americans had switched from bottled to tap water in the last year.

“People are tired of being tricked into buying something they can get freely from the tap,” said Urquiza. “People are also coming to realize why such a simple move is such serious stuff for Coke – if it can’t differentiate its water from the tap, it won’t have a market for its product.”

Though bottled water is less regulated than the tap, historically its marketing has eroded public confidence in tap water – though that confidence is being restored through public education campaigns like Think Outside the Bottle.  

The political fallout when public opinion sags is that funding for public water systems declines. Cities are currently facing a $22 billion annual shortfall in the funding they need to adequately fund public water systems. In a time of $700 billion corporate bailouts with uncertain economic returns, closing this funding gap would actually inject $2.62 into the economy for every dollar invested.

“This is an important first step for Coke in acknowledging the broader context it is doing business in,” said Urquiza. “Water is too essential to be disguised this Halloween. Honesty in advertising isn’t just the right thing to do, it ensures that people can make informed choices about our most critical resource.”