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Permalink Reply by NG Venkat on November 3, 2011 at 2:09pm

Hi

 

The first step would be to differentiate your product into 3 segments that you have mentioned: Tourists (from abroad), general public and hotels. Maybe by packaging and branding it appropriately. 

Second step is to identify what "messages or value communication" you would like to portray for the 3 segments!!. A message that identifies with the target group and you have differentiated by default!!

Hope this helps....Regards - Venkat 

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Permalink Reply by Abey John on November 23, 2011 at 6:30pm

Reminds me of the Schiltz Beer marketing campaign from the 1920s.  Everybody used the same process.  But nobody told the story.  Tell the right story and you can carve a profitable space for yourself even among the generics.  

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Permalink Reply by Nayana Somaratna on November 23, 2011 at 11:15pm

Wow @Abey - thanks a lot ! I really learnt something important just now.

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Permalink Reply by Ankur Shukla on December 22, 2011 at 8:58pm

Wishing you great luck on your venture. Its one of the most profitable business to be in if you can position the brand correctly. The key is to start monopolizing certain areas completely with your brand of water starting with smaller places and them move over to bigger locations in the city.

I've seen how earlier people wanted AQUAFINA in India and then BISLERI became the most wanted water brand but now in Indian trains, they sell another brand called BIBA and people buy it without any issues. 

Another segment is brands like QUA that sell for Rs.50 for 750 ml of water and are sold at 4 star and 5 star hotels.

You highest amount of work you need to do with your brand of mineral water is POSITIONING. Everything else wont matter if you cant get the positioning right ( just my 2 cents )

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Permalink Reply by Prashant Chauhan on January 8, 2012 at 12:37pm

Hi ,

As per my prespective ,what so ever the diffrentation and many Brands in mineral water industry to get your product
sold in market u need PUSH and not PULL strategy most of the consumer are not going to ask for specific brand they just buy what retailer PUSH them, to make Good Sales of your product u need to give good Margins to retailer over other Brands.
as far as Diffrentaion, you can make some good packaging innovation ,flavoured water ,better promotions etc
if you can maintain healthy Margins after doing all above.  
As far as i know  Mineral water Business is PUSH model and NOT PULL .  

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Permalink Reply by Raj Halve on January 19, 2012 at 3:11pm

Some thoughts on how you can differentiate in a pretty commoditised business:

1. SOURCE : Evian, Himalaya etc etc - they all are differentiated based on WHERE their water comes from. is that an Option for you? Check FIJI Water out....a stunning success !  Pls check this link : http://www.fijiwater.com/

2. BENEFIT: You can own a core Emotional benefit - Freshness, Coming Alive, Relieving Tiredness etc. But this means big spends on communication.

3. INGREDIENT/ADDITIVE:  So whether its Vitaminised water or whatever, that is another route especially if the Additive chosen is Unique and somehow "ownable".

4. DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY: You can also build Niche brands by restricting distribution initially. For example, sell ONLY at SPAs in hotels , trying to create the thought "Spas are healthy, rejuvenating. The Spas only use this brand of water. They must know something I dont. So this brand must be healthy, natural and rejuvenating. ( To create a new marketing jargon - Osmotic Brand building" !! :-)

5. UNIQUE SHAPE = UNIQUE BENEFIT: You could have a unique shape not just for shape but where the shape adds to the benefit of the brand. For example, a bottle designed such that it can be "clipped on" to belts - so great drink for hikers etc.

Cheers

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Permalink Reply by Mandar Joshi on January 28, 2012 at 7:31am

Hi Nadeera, I may have a point of view and which can become a differentiating factor for you. Install Fountains of Filtered Water at all the public places like Bus Stands, Markets, Malls and Multiplexes and sell purified and filtered water through the automated water dispensing systems into your customer's empty water bottle. You can give a refill of one liter bottle by accepting a coin of Rs.5 or sell coupons through retailers nearby to get water out of the machine. I have noticed that when we travel for a longer duration we love to carry our own water pitcher and loath for a facility where we can refill our water pitcher. If you create such kind of Water dispensing system which will guarantee 100 % pure and filtered water and when people will see it any many places of their convenience they will start carrying their water pitchers (In fact you can sell them your own branded good quality PU Pitcher at a price of course ) This business model will create lot many differentiators for for you 

• This will save environment by reducing the distribution and in turn production of hazardous Plastic or PET bottles.
• You can sell the refill of empty water pitcher at phenomenally low cost. Those who are using big water containers of 20 Lit. in their office already know how economical it is when it is bought on a scale.
• You would be able to sell it like an ATW machine (All Time Water) Machine, this machine can be plugged to a water container of 20 Lit or a bank of 4 to 5 containers of 20 Lit and you can appoint an agency to change the containers.
• You might get some assistance from Govt agencies as you are helping to preserve nature by reducing water bottle consumption.
• Save Environment can become your USP and you can attract customers who are looking for greener options. If you remember before the bottled water era we all use to carry our own water pitchers or bottles and refill them at all the public water stations. With some marketing effort you can revive this forgotten habit in consumer

May be this sound a foolish idea but buying and selling bottled water also sounded a foolish idea in the beginning :) You should be be focussing on creating a Blue Ocean rather than finding means to swim the Red Ocean of competition.

Wish you all the best for your new venture  

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Permalink Reply by Sudhir Agrawal on January 30, 2012 at 9:22pm

Interesting Mandar!!!!

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Permalink Reply by kinnari thacker dave on February 3, 2012 at 5:12pm

take a look at this...

Attachments:

• apple_water.jpg, 75 KB

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Permalink Reply by Himanshu Agarwal on March 9, 2012 at 5:40pm

Hi Nadeera,

You may like to have a look at my post "Water Water Everywhere" on http://www.himanshuagarwal.com

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Permalink Reply by Murtaza Amin on March 12, 2012 at 11:27am

Instead of selling water bottles to them (Which costs 12 to 15 INR) why don't you sell single glass of water (obviously filtered) and also sell bottles if anyone wants. a glass must not cost more than 2 INR. you will get more customers, and that is also a good cause too.

install a automatic vending machine which is available in the market, if anyone puts up a coin the water will dispatch..

@Alok and other senior members might give a better insight on my idea. 

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Permalink Reply by Anshoo Grover on May 11, 2012 at 3:56pm

Had an amazing experience when I visited Ahmedabad, 3 yrs back. Might be an option worth considering:

There's this hotel (and restaurant) near the railway station (name forgotten). It served packaged water free - best part was the brand was the same as the hotel. I believe it tasted quite decent.

My suggestion is that you may distribute your packaged water 'co-branded' with the restaurants, etc. It might be a very interesting proposition for the restaurants, which should pay a premium for this (they may or mat not choose to give it to consumers for free). You can create a long term lock-in with this kind of arrangement, also select the best channel partners - it will help them in branding too.

It carries the added advantage of having low customization cost as the basic product/packaging will be the same while the label on top would have to be customized. This would be a big 'differentiator' for sure!

All the best.

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