MarketTrip - VitaminWater Creates Loyalty, Community...and Now Suspicion

There's something fishy going on at Glaceau...at least as far as its VitaminWater product lineup goes. Consumers are starting to talk about it and some folks are getting pretty upset.

It seems, at least people are speculating, that Glaceau has been messing around with the formula for "Revive" - its popular Fruit Punch flavor. It looks a little funny (less deep red/purple) and it tastes a little different too...

It's just a hunch...based on people's observations and recollections of taste but VitaminWater devotees tend to know their water well so they're probably on to something. So what's the deal if it's true?

We can only speculate (the company hasn't made any announcements) but speculate we shall...

In the past 12 months, the VitaminWater offering has grown from 6 or so flavors to a veritable rainbow spectrum of 16 flavors/colors. New flavors/colors include "Defense" (Cran-Apple) in burgundy, "Endurance" (Peach-Mango) in...well, peach and "Charge" (Lemon-Lime) in a greenish-yellow hue. This brand expansion has highlighted, from a marketing perspective, just how tied to color the VitaminWater flavors are. Flavor colors key to label colors...yellow to yellow, pink to pink, etc...(except for Lemonade which has a blue label).

But it's in the purple shades that the lineup has grown most conspicuously...there are now three purple flavors (the original "Revive," "Formula 50"- grape, and "XXX" - Acai-blueberry-pomegranate).

I'm speculating that it got to be a bit too crowded in the purples for the marketing folks when they realized that really all that differentiated "Revive" and "XXX" visually was the label on the bottle (XXX got a black label). Their solution (perhaps) was to lighten "Revive" so that it more neatly fills the middle ground between "Formula 50" (pale purple) and "XXX"... Perhaps this change in hue had a subtle effect on taste.

Ok. So it was a marketing decision...only problem is that people noticed and most questioned in my totally unscientific poll don't really like the result. They used words like "betrayed" and "wronged" to describe their feelings... Now, this isn't on the same level as Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco*...more like the Old Becky/New Becky switcheroo on Rosanne or Dick York in place of Dick Sargent on Bewitched. It's unsettling and largely inexplicable but something people know they'll get used to and then not think much about moving forward.

People will get over it and VitaminWater likely won't really lose any drinkers...but since it involves something as choice-critical as flavor which in the beverage biz is the very heart of consumer loyalty (much more so than giveaways or points programs), if true, it seems like a really risky move on Glaceaus' part.

*or brilliant move. Some view Coke's switch as a well conceived marketing ploy. I don't buy it...

A Brief History of Negligence?

You can experience the wonders of weightlessness riding the same kind of "Vomit Comet" that NASA uses for astronaut training with scientific legend Dr. Stephen Hawking. eBay is auctioning off this experience... the winner will join Hawking on a 90 minute flight during which you'll experience several periods of near or total weightlessness.

This, for me, raises two big questions.

First, does it make sense for someone in Hawking's physical state (he has ALS, better known as "Lou Gherig's disease and is confined to a wheelchair) to be careening around an airplane fuselage pulling zero Gs? I don't want to be one to limit someone's autonomy or quash a dream but just look at the promotional image at above! And we've all seen the archival footage of astronauts in training in their blue jumpsuits tumbling about, bumping off walls and generally having a grand 'ol time. But they have full control of their extremities which they can use to steer themselves and limit their movements.

Second, one has to wonder, (and I'm not trying to be funny about this) if his wheelchair will be making the trip too and what kind of added element of risk to him and to the winner does that pose? Does eBay assume the liability if you're injured by Hawking's wheelchair?

100% of the proceeds (bidding stood at $16,500 at time of writing) go to charity so I guess the risks to the participants are a small price to pay for the good that can be done. That is, unless this ends in litigation.

Me & Dan Dan Guitar Man (Down by the Train Yard)

Thanks Dan...Thanks Dan

Dan Dan Guitar Man

For putting a big-ol smile on my face at the end of the day

Your stummin' makes the stress and the shit on my mind just melt away

Electric blues, funk and jazz flowin' melodically from your amp

You rock Back Bay Station from the Track 3/4 (stairwell) ramp.

I wish I had the time to linger longer

Doing so would make my appreciation for your sound no doubt even stronger

But I got a train to catch Dan

Like Elton sang I'm a rocket man

Evil or Genius or Evil Genius?

Usually, the descriptors "evil" or "genius" are reserved for extremes and those people or things designated as such by popular culture (or at least your side of the Culture War) are pretty much generally accepted to be true. A few examples:

Hitler = evil
Einstein = genius

Taxes = evil
The PC = genius

But every so often, in the course of our daily travels, we come across something that confounds us because its root seems to potentially be either (or both). I've been wrestling with this question as I flip-flop on the decision about whether to give myself over to a Crack-berry device.

This quickly-approaching superfluous set up is meant only to provide some kind of pseudo-theoretical context for mention of a product which, for me at least, falls squarely in the sights of the gray mushy area that separates clearly evil from clear-cut genius...

It's called SeasonShot and it's a shotgun projectile made up of food seasonings formed into pellets and tightly packed into a shotgun shell casing that is itself a foodstuff. The way it works is that upon impact with say a duck, the shell contents disperse into the duck's body thereby infusing said game with, for example, Teryiaki or lemon pepper. Oh, and killing it too.

The two primary benefits according to the manufacturer are that the seasoning is evenly distributed from within (no "cuts" with only surface flavoring) and that there's no buck shot left in the kill (so no messy cleaning). For ethical (I think) reasons, I'm not providing a link to the site in this post...you can Google it on your own.

Now to the philosophical wranglings (prepare fore some circular logic!)...

I'm not a hunter but I'm a carnivore. I don't ever want to hunt because the thought of killing an animal sickens me but I'm a realist - I know that the meat I buy at the grocery wrapped in cellophane was once breathing. I'm a bit of a foodie and love flavorful food in all its forms but I read the health news so I know that poultry skin is way high in cholesterol.

So where does that leave me on the issue of SeasonShot? Evil or genius? I have this strange appreciation for the ingenuity of the product and since I'm not a vegetarian, I guess I'm pro-killing of animals for food...so I can't condemn one of the means to the tasty end. SO I guess that that leaves me only one choice and that's to regard this product as "evil genius."

Panhandling Goes High-tech

As I began my daily commute home last Thursday evening and descended the steps into the Copley Square T Station, I passed the same kindly old homeless gentleman I pass just about every day. Sitting at the top of the steps on his overturned milk crate, he's always quick with a "hello" and a "god bless you" if you decline to give him your spare change. But on this day, he was offering up neither. Instead, I heard him say "ok, I've got to go. I'm working Copley" and turned to see him speaking on a cell phone!

I had to laugh to myself and I'd like to believe that his conversation was real because the notion of a network of homeless folks in constant communication about how locations around the city are "performing" is one of those things you just want to be true because it demonstrates the beauty, resilience and injenuity of the human spirit! With the proliferation of pre-paid cell phones (no billing address required!), it's perfectly feasible that the panhandling "profession" could, like just about every other, go high-tech also!

Lub dub. Lub dub. Wowza!

Today my wife and I heard our unborn baby's heartbeat for the first time. And the effect was simultaneously that of a rousing aria, the burst of cheers following the crack of ball on bat, a bear hug and a high-five from everyone you've ever known. Celebration, excitement, reassurance and a supreme sense of accomplishment are all rolled into a single second when you hear "lub dub" three and four echoing loud and clear from the sonogram machine (Why three and four? Because you don't recognize or believe beats one and two). And with this flood of fantastic emotions comes the tidal wave that is the gravity of the situation...that your wife is pregnant and that there's a life...as in a tiny human being...growing inside her. You're smart enough to understand the biology (you think, but science never really was your strength), you listen to her describe what she's been feeling daily for the past two and a half months and you'd been briefed such that you expected (hoped, really) to hear the heartbeat but until you heard it, saw your wife's face light up with the biggest smile you've ever seen and felt "condensation" well up in the corners of your eyes, it wasn't really, truly real to you. And now it is and it's a moment, a sound, a feeling that you can't get out of your head (and you don't want to!). It's playing on continuous loop and it feels AMAZING!