Most people know about Coca Cola’s failure to launch Dasani bottled water in the UK.
How they took tap water, costing 0.03p for half a litre, and tried to sell it for 95p a bottle.
To British people this sounded like a joke.
In fact it seemed so ridiculous that the comedy show Only Fools And Horses had done it several years earlier.
Del Boy tried bottling tap water and selling it as “Peckham Spring” water.
It was a hilarious idea.
But incredibly, it was exactly what the marketing geniuses at Coca Cola did.
They obviously didn’t do much research into the UK market.
They didn’t even bother researching the language.
They just used the online ad campaign they were running in the US.
It featured the strapline: WATER WITH SPUNK.
No one bothered checking how this would work in the UK.
In America “spunk” means brave and daring.
But spunk means something very different in the UK.
In the UK spunk is the equivalent of the American term “cum”.
But no one took the trouble to find this out.
So the adverts featured a beautiful young model on the beach, creating a spray as she threw her head back.
Alongside was the headline: FULL OF SPUNK.
A different headline told us that the young model: CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT SPUNK.
And yet another headline told us that the product itself was: BOTTLED SPUNK.
The campaign said we should enjoy spunk “at home, in the gym, and everywhere in between”.
It told us spunk was “vitally refreshing and abundantly available”.
And spunk could become “a way of everyday life”.
That is how Coca Cola marketed Dasani in the UK.
These were the same people that expected the public to pay a 316,600% mark up for tap water.
In order to justify the mark up Coca Cola explained that the tap water was thoroughly filtered before it was bottled.
The suggestion that the water needed filtering upset Thames Water, who were Dasani’s suppliers.
A Thames Water spokesman issued a statement to the press to clarify matters.
He said “Tap water is pure. People don’t need to buy this stuff to get excellent quality water.”
So, another brilliant piece of PR from the Coca Cola marketing department.
It was found that one of the things Dasani had, that tap water didn’t, was 10mg per litre of Bromate.
This is an illegal amount of a potentially cancer-causing ingredient.
When this became public, half a million bottles were immediately recalled.
In summary, the launch of Dasani was a failure.
It might have had a better chance of success if someone had bothered finding out about the market before they launched the product.
But evidently they didn’t think that was necessary.
Instead, just about everything they did was actually harmful.
Coca Cola spent around £10 million marketing Dasani.
Definitely not the best example of a well spent marketing budget.
But a good example that not all marketing is good marketing.
That was really a bad move by a giant company.
The Danes have little liquorice sweets called “spunk”.
They make a flavoured vodka from the sweets which they call “spunk vodka shot”.
I think it is only successful in Denmark.
Hi Dave,
Very true indeed that not all marketing is good marketing. Another example was Chevrolet Nova which didn’t sell well in Latin America as “no va” means in Spanish “it doesn’t go”!
This is why it’s very important as you wrote – to find out about the market before launching the product. So on Chinese market Coca-Cola did the homework and the name “Kekoukele” means “tasty fun” which personifies their brand.
Best wishes
Zuzanna
How about Mitsubishi Pajero? Spanish slang meaning “wanker”, appropriately.
Thanks for the blog Dave, I remember that the product failed, but didn’t know the detail. interesting.
Hi Dave, I didn’t know that story. Thank you for telling me. I think it’s absolutely disgraceful. No only is it outright profiteering by a major corporation that should know far better, it’s scandalous and life threatening. Major corporations who behave in such a totally irresponsible way should be sued and publicly shamed. I haven’t drunk Coke for a long time now as you can see what it does to coins, I guess it cannot do much better to the internal organs of your stomach. I have a friend who drank a litre of Coke for 2 years every day. I told him “Are you mad?” He now has one tooth left. All the rest are false.
Talking of which, False News seems to be the in-thing in the Ad industry now. Whatever happened to Honesty, Truthfulness and Decency? The amount of False News simply sickens me. It’s a by-product of the Internet age where anyone can advertise themselves, but unlike the past, there are little or few rules to stop people doing stupid things, and most agencies nowadays are equally irresponsible. They just want the quick spurt of attention without considering having a thought of how they are ejaculating over the whole population regardless. The industry has become crass and this story proves it.
To be honest, I’m very relieved I’m not part of it any more. I can put my head on the pillow at night without worrying if I’ve done anything grossly irresponsible that could mess up another person’s life. Roll on January 20th for the next instalment of “Life in the age of Global Corporate Government”.
Absolutely priceless, Dave.
A perfect example of the perils of mindless globalism.
A client looking to save money on the launch by simply borrowing from overseas without any sort of ‘safety check’ in place. Did it not occur to CC to ask the local marketing people what they thought, or did they miss it as well? (Arse kickings all round, if that was the case).
You don’t actually say who the agency was. Or are they still in hiding?
Either way – a glorious total cock-up.
Suspect someone along the line saw the glitches and spoke up.
But middle / top management refused to listen.
How many times have junior suits/planners/creative’s voiced valid and obvious concerns.
Only to be ignored / ridiculed.
Btw,dasani lives in Asia.
It’s the bottled water of choice at a fast-food chain.
You know, you can’t just blame the agencies. Agencies go by what they are told by their clients. If they are lied to by the clients then they cannot be blamed for any wrongdoing. Take the BMW scandal in exhaust emissions which cost then $4 billion. At least BMW had the courage to face their convictions and pay up. What have Coca-Cola done with Desani? Going by other comments, it seems they just “upped-sticks” and moved to another country. Disgraceful.
Are you kidding me? Shouldn’t you be paying attention to congressional confirmation hearings to determine the future of the next administration instead of explaining the difference between cum & spunk in Britain? Maybe you haven’t noticed that the most potentially corrupt administration in our nation’s history is on the brink of taking office, but there are far more important lessons to be learned this week than a failed marketing campaign from 2004!!! 2004, you may remember that year, we were 3-4 years from the worst recession since the depression!!! Pay attention Dave!!