06/05/2024 08:42:00 PM 
In the late 80s and early 90s "new age beverages" arrived on the scene including, Clearly Canadian. The brand had a number of things going for it, the perceived quality and freshness of the water from Canada, distinctive packaging and flavoring innovation.
From 1988-1992, Clearly Canadian enjoyed incredible success and massive growth, but by 1992, the beverage giants had entered the new age market and started to squeeze the tiny company. The company's last real attempt at innovation was in the mid-90s with Orbitz; water with colored gel capsules that briefly achieved fad status with teens.
Close to twenty years later, the brand is trying to make a comeback with new natural formulations of flavored waters and support for Global Water a non-profit committed to establishing safe water supplies around the world.
In 20 years, there's been a lot of change in the water market. Back in the 80s, water origin mattered as most of the brands came from US springs or were fancy Euro imports bottled at source. Then came the Perrier contamination crisis that undermined the credibility of spring waters.
There has also been a massive drive by Pepsi and Coca-Cola to capture the dominant share of this growing market with their Aquafina and Dasani brands. Brands that didn?t claim authenticity, but instead pushed water as being essential for life and through their incredible distribution networks, made sure our thirst could be quenched whenever. Each of these brands now claims close to $1billion in sales.
These brands are filtered tap water with additives, but Americans seem to no longer care about origin, for many, it's perceived as a negative. In Aquafina's focus groups, consumers described premium waters as "women in black dresses drinking martinis" and the old American brands were :the guys they went to high school with, who were shooting pool in flannel shirts". They were looking for something more approachable.
Coke and Pepsi carved out the mass middle and forced origin based brands to seek either local or high-end niches.The luxury end of the market is where Fiji has achieved considerable success by attaching its name to high-end celebrity chefs like Nobu.
Clearly Canadian has the advantage of a recognized brand name and they are meeting a need for good tasting flavored waters. However, but they need to recognize the market is different, cool packaging is now the norm and origin only counts if they are going for the premium end of the business.
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