Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Can heavyweight ads sell flyweight products?
If you’re advertising an innovative light-weight product, my advice is: don’t send it in a package that’s 140 times heavier than what you’re trying to sell.
PepsiCo’s Aquafina in the United States sent out a news realease saying that its new half-litre water bottles weigh just 10.9 grams, or half as much as a previous design from 2002.
“The lightest weight bottle in the market,” the release says.
Great idea! Less packaging will save the company an estimated 34,000 tonnes of plastic a year, it says. That’s a good step towards saving costs, waste and carbon emissions.
But a box with the release came with three (…yes, three) full (…yes, full) bottles of water: that’s them above, lined up on a Reuters News windowsill. So all of a sudden it’s not 10.9 grams but 1.5 kilos (plus the cardboard packaging), so at least 140 times the weight of a bottle. Maybe someone thinks we reporters don’t drink enough water?
