Another bloody water? Yep.

I’ve been seeing these in a few eateries around Sydney lately. Trumpeting yourself as one of a crowd is an interesting tactic, and just cheeky enough to catch my attention. Continuing the theme, the no-frills bottle comes wrapped in a blurb full of no-holds-barred Australianisms:

Since we unceremoniously (some say rudely) barged our way into the overcrowded bottled water market with a good-looking bottle, a smartarse name and a devil may care attitude it has come to our attention that our competitors don’t like us*. They think we are taking the piss. That we mock the overly flowery, exaggerated language and the poorly drawn waterfalls and diagrams of volcanos on their labels.  They think that we are not taking the serious aquatic science of bottled water…well seriously.

So to quash any future smear campaign and rumour mongering they may come up with, we’re going to set the record straight right here. Smart Alec name – yes. Just another water – no.

First up our water is bloody good. Better than most. It comes from a spring, high in the Victorian Alps, which is a bloody long drive from civilisation (see: pollution). The only farms in the area are organic which means no nasty pesticides or any of those other evil poisons end up in the water. In fact we deal with the rampant blackberry problem by setting our deer on them. It’s a tough gig for the deer but they seem to like it. And while we’re blowing our own trumpet independent Government approved laboratories have done tests and they reckon it’s lower in sodium than all other major brands on the Australian market. Did we say it tastes bloody good?

So there you go, Doubting Thomas competitors – cards on the table. Enjoy Another Bloody Water, everyone. And then when you’re done with that enjoy another Another Bloody Water. And so on.

* We don’t actually know if our competitors don’t like us. But being ‘competitors’ we’re pretty sure they don’t.

This epic spiel interests me for two reasons. First, they really go all-out on the colloquial speech. This seems like a daring tactic for a “stylish” product given our national propensity for cultural cringe, but I guess the ice was broken by the name.

Second, after lampooning the ridiculous farce of bottled water they turn around and say the clever name’s just a joke – in fact they actually-really-truly are different (and better of course). That’s like going out on a limb in a climbing harness!

Marketers, listen. If you want to reach us with clever self-awareness then stick to your guns. Don’t double-talk, don’t hedge your bets. Commit to the gambit. Show us real honesty and we will trust you.

Interestingly, the company has a decent blog, a MySpace page and Facebook group. I’ll be keen to see how this strategy unfolds.