This is a bottle of Dasani, Coca-Cola's brand of bottled water. It is basically Coke without the syrup. Like most American bottled water, it is tap water that's been purified and then had tiny amounts of minerals deliberately added back into it. Except not quite. This is a British Dasani bottle from 2004, which is the first and last time you could ever buy Dasani water in the UK. And the story of why it failed here is one of the greatest marketing disaster stories in history. But it wasn't until I started researching, searching through newspapers and TV shows from 2004, that I found that the tale is a little more complicated than I thought. A little more complicated than a lot of the world thought. And it starts years earlier. Through most of the 1980s, bottled water was something expensive that got ordered at fancy restaurants, and it was only by the early 90s that it didn't start to become a thing that everyday people might want to buy. On Christmas Day, 1992, British sitcom Only Fools and Horses made fun of that trend by having its main character, lovable rogue Del Boy, sell tap water from South London as Peckham Spring bottled water. It's a slow and old-fashioned comedy by today's standards, and the episode is really weirdly paced. You're two-thirds of the way through before anyone actually starts bottling water, but because it was the Christmas Day episode in 1992, back when most British households only had four channels of television, that show was watched by more than 20 million people, more than a third of the entire British population. And the final joke of that episode is that the water is contaminated by some chemical barrels that Del Boy dumped in a local pond in the first act. It is, to be fair, a brilliant closing gag, and it's one that's stuck in the British psyche. The BBC reran the episode another five times in the years after. It'll have been on cable and satellite channels many more times than that. I would guess that by 2004, when Dasani launched, about half of the country, maybe more, could understand Peckham Spring as a reference, or at least remember that time Del Boy tried to bottle tap water. Now, under UK law, mineral water is a protected term. Mineral water must come from a certified underground spring. It must not be chemically treated in any way, and it's generally under heavy regulation. And back in 2004, the perception was that bottled water meant mineral water. Why else would you buy it? It's it's something you can't get at home. Over in America, though, the home of Coca-Cola, the perception of bottled water was that it was just that. It was water in a bottle. You were paying for the convenience and the taste, and it didn't really matter whether that came from the ground or from a water purification factory. To be fair, there are large parts of America where the tap water does not taste or smell good, and their federal standards aren't great, particularly compared to Europe. And anyone who has ever taken a vacation to Disney World, for example, will know that the tap water around Orlando can smell a little sulfury. But in the UK, the perception was different. You were buying mineral water because it was natural. It had been filtered through rocks for eons. It was classier and fancier and perhaps healthier than what came out of your tap. That's for us, of course. We have some of the safest tap water in the world, and did back then too, but advertising is powerful, and the idea was that bottled water was filtered and pure straight from the earth. It was somehow better. Coca-Cola were trying to introduce an American-style filtered tap water to a British mineral water market. Now, they were not lying about their water. Their marketing didn't use the phrase tap water. They preferred purified water, but they weren't lying. It says on the back of the bottle, their process precisely delivers pure still water. The public might have assumed it was mineral water, but Coca-Cola never said that. In fact, what they had done is spent a long time with focus groups, taste testing and refining the mineral balance and the flavor of the water, making a version of Dasani that was ideal for the British palate. Dasani launched with the first stage of what was going to be a 7 million pound advertising campaign on February 10th, 2004, and it went okay. For weeks, the British public either didn't notice or didn't care that it was tap water, the same way Americans don't seem to care. There were occasional rough patches for the launch, like shopkeepers in Buxton, a town famous for its mineral water, complaining about being forced by their contracts with Coca-Cola to replace bottles of the local water in coolers with Dasani. Or the regulators launching an investigation into whether Coca-Cola should be using the word pure on the label. But, on the whole, it went okay. A lot of articles written more recently claim that Coca-Cola's first blunder was copying an American Dasani slogan, "Can't live without spunk," which has a very different meaning in the UK. But I don't think that's true. The only actual evidence I could find of that slogan is a screenshot on one tech news website that liked innuendo. Looks like a web designer reused some American ad images in one part of a flash-based website that almost no one saw. No other article from the time that I can find, anyway, mentions that slogan at all. The advertising was put together by Coca-Cola's UK division. They're not stupid. In fact, the advertising team was probably pretty good. Really, all things considered, the launch had been successful. And then it all went wrong, very, very quickly. Exactly three weeks after launch, March the 2nd, most of the major British newspapers simultaneously put out big stories announcing that Dasani was bottled tap water. Most of them mentioned that episode of Only Fools and Horses, and all of them made a lot of noise implying that it was a rip-off, although perhaps they didn't put it in quite so few words. And back when a lot of people actually read physical newspapers, front-page news saying that your product is a rip-off does make a big difference to sales. But why was it suddenly news everywhere at the same time after three silent weeks? The missing piece of the puzzle is one journalist called Graham Hiscott, who worked for the Press Association. And as he tells it, as part of a brilliant half-hour documentary made later that year, he happened to be flipping through an issue of The Grocer, an industry magazine, at work one day. And, you know, that's that's an event that the the documentary asked him to recreate for some reason. Now, The Grocer is an ideal source for journalists looking for the next story about a product recall or a weird marketing strategy. And that issue of the magazine had a feature on bottled water. And there was just one line in one article describing Dasani as a mineral-enhanced treated tap water, which, when written so clearly, seemed odd. So Graham called Coca-Cola, and they said, yes. Yeah, Dasani is is treated tap water from the main supply at their bottling plant, right there, in Sidcup, South London, 10 miles from Peckham, where that episode of Only Fools and Horses was set. A few hours after that phone call, there was an article on the Press Association news wire about where Dasani came from. Articles on the news wire don't usually go straight to the public. They go to other journalists first who can use them or adapt them. And the editors at most of the newspapers correctly decided that, yes, this was something their readers would be interested in. Six months earlier, when Coca-Cola was setting out preparations for their Dasani launch, The Grocer had run a small article about it. And there's a line in there that's prophetic. One senior buyer warned that some consumers may be put off by the water's lack of provenance. And now, Coke bottling tap water for 3,000% markup was on the front pages. But Coca-Cola and Dasani soldiered on. That didn't kill the brand. They put more marketing budget behind it. They gave away three bottles in supermarkets. Another article in The Grocer from back then quotes Coca-Cola's UK marketing director. "There cannot be many people who do not know about Dasani now as a result of the press coverage. I cannot imagine how much we would have had to spend to get that level of awareness." There is a theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity, after all. The final nail in the coffin was the contamination. They'd had a bad batch of calcium chloride delivered right here. It's one of the chemicals they use in the purification process, and tests revealed that their water contained above the legal limits of bromate, a cancer-causing chemical. There wasn't anywhere near enough in the water to do harm, but there was enough that it was outside the legal limits. So within 24 hours, every unsold bottle was recalled back here, and the shelves were empty. Just like Del Boy, not only had Coca-Cola sold tap water in a bottle, but they'd sold contaminated tap water in a bottle. Dasani never returned to shops. Never launched in France or Germany, like they were planning. And to this day, if you type Dasani into Google UK, you get results about the disaster, news reports from 2004 on the first page. Coca-Cola launched other water brands, of course, but as far as I can tell, they all look to be spring waters or mineral waters. They're not hooking up a purifier to the tap. Not over here. There are other folks selling purified tap water, of course, but that's usually the cheap option on the shelf. Not that it matters. It's all just water. And I reckon Coca-Cola could absolutely have made this work. Maybe they still could. There is a world in which one journalist didn't use the words tap water, or another journalist didn't happen to look at one particular article, and where the launch went just fine, and Britain got used to the fact that drinking bottled purified tap water could be normal. After all, if it had been a popular brand, no one would want to admit their purchases might be questionable. It's a lot easier to just say, yeah, that's fine. Of course. I know it's tap water. Then go, hang on, I've been paying how much for what? And worry that you might have been ripped off. I don't think the Dasani disaster was inevitable. But it happened. And all that's left, 16 years later, is a few bottles like this. Shame about the people honking, wasn't it? Yeah. They might have, I now, I'll tell you what, we turned that well, because here comes a lorry. Shame about the people honking, wasn't it? Yeah. They might have, I now, I'll tell you what, we turned that well, because here comes a lorry.
A man in a light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans stands on a paved sidewalk next to a road, holding a blue Dasani water bottle. He gestures with his right hand as he speaks, explaining the composition of the water. Cars pass on the road behind him.
"This is a bottle of Dasani, Coca-Cola's brand of bottled water. It is basically Coke without the syrup. Like most American bottled water, it is tap water that's been purified, and then had tiny amounts of minerals deliberately added back into it."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• standing, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — smiling, engaged
The man continues to speak, holding the Dasani bottle. Two images of Dasani bottles with labels appear on either side of him, showing the front and nutritional information of a 500ml purified still water bottle.
"Except not quite. This is a British Dasani bottle from 2004, which is the first and last time you could ever buy Dasani water in the UK. And the story of why it failed here is one of the greatest marketing disaster stories in history."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• standing, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man walks forward on the sidewalk, holding the Dasani bottle with both hands, gesturing as he speaks. Cars continue to pass on the road to his right. The on-screen graphics of the bottle labels disappear.
"But it wasn't until I started researching, searching through newspapers and TV shows from 2004, that I found that the tale is a little more complicated than I thought. A little more complicated than a lot of the world thought. And it starts years earlier."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with his right hand to emphasize points. Cars continue to pass on the road.
"Through most of the 1980s, bottled water was something expensive that got ordered at fancy restaurants, and it was only by the early 90s that it didn't start to become a thing that everyday people might want to buy."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking. On the right side of the screen, a split-screen appears showing a still image from the British sitcom "Only Fools and Horses: Mother Nature's Son," depicting a street market scene with many people. Text below identifies the show and year.
"On Christmas Day, 1992, British sitcom Only Fools and Horses made fun of that trend by having its main character, lovable rogue Del Boy, sell tap water from South London as Peckham Spring bottled water."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Only Fools and Horses: Mother Nature's Son BBC, 1992"
The man continues walking and speaking. The split-screen on the right changes to show a scene from the sitcom where two men in white lab coats are bottling water, then another scene of one man in a lab coat holding a tray of bottles.
"It's a slow and old-fashioned comedy by today's standards, and the episode is really weirdly paced. You're two-thirds of the way through before anyone actually starts bottling water, but because it was the Christmas Day episode in 1992, back when most British households only had four channels of television, that show was watched by more than 20 million people, more than a third of the entire British population."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Only Fools and Horses: Mother Nature's Son BBC, 1992"
The man continues walking and speaking. The split-screen on the right changes again, showing a scene from the sitcom with barrels in water, then a close-up of a bottle, and finally a glowing bottle in a dark setting.
"And the final joke of that episode is that the water is contaminated by some chemical barrels that Del Boy dumped in a local pond in the first act. It is, to be fair, a brilliant closing gag, and it's one that's stuck in the British psyche."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Only Fools and Horses: Mother Nature's Son BBC, 1992"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The split-screen with the sitcom clips disappears.
"The BBC reran the episode another five times in the years after. It'll have been on cable and satellite channels many more times than that. I would guess that by 2004, when Dasani launched, about half of the country, maybe more, could understand Peckham Spring as a reference, or at least remember that time Del Boy tried to bottle tap water."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking. On-screen text appears in a black box, then a screenshot of a UK government legislation website about water regulations. The text highlights specific criteria for "natural mineral water."
"Now, under UK law, mineral water is a protected term. Mineral water must come from a certified underground spring. It must not be chemically treated in any way, and it's generally under heavy regulation."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "mineral water", "The Natural Mineral Water, Spring Water and Bottled Drinking Water Regulations 1999", ""natural mineral water" means water which- (a) is microbiologically wholesome; (b) originates in an underground water table or deposit and emerges from a spring tapped at one or more natural or bore exits; (c) can be clearly distinguished from ordinary drinking water by the characteristics referred to in paragraph 1 of Section I of Annex I; and (d) is for the time being recognised for the purposes of Article 1 pursuant to regulation 4;"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The on-screen text about water regulations disappears. He gestures with both hands to emphasize his points. Cars continue to pass on the road.
"And back in 2004, the perception was that bottled water meant mineral water. Why else would you buy it? It's it's something you can't get at home. Over in America, though, the home of Coca-Cola, the perception of bottled water was that it was just that. It was water in a bottle. You were paying for the convenience and the taste, and it didn't really matter whether that came from the ground or from a water purification factory."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with his right hand, then brings it to his nose briefly.
"To be fair, there are large parts of America where the tap water does not taste or smell good, and their federal standards aren't great, particularly compared to Europe. And anyone who has ever taken a vacation to Disney World, for example, will know that the tap water around Orlando can smell a little sulfury."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking, briefly touches nose
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures emphatically with both hands. On-screen text appears, counting down from 3 to 0, indicating an upcoming car horn sound.
"But in the UK, the perception was different. You were buying mineral water because it was natural. It had been filtered through rocks for eons. It was classier and fancier and perhaps healthier than what came out of your tap. That's for us, of course. We have some of the safest tap water in the world, and did back then too, but advertising is powerful, and the idea was that bottled water was filtered and pure straight from the earth. It was somehow better."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Car horn in 3", "Car horn in 2", "Car horn in 1", "Car horn in 0"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with his right hand. A close-up of the Dasani bottle label appears on the bottom of the screen, showing the text "Purified Still Water" and ingredients.
"Coca-Cola were trying to introduce an American-style filtered tap water to a British mineral water market. Now, they were not lying about their water. Their marketing didn't use the phrase tap water. They preferred purified water, but they weren't lying. It says on the back of the bottle, their process precisely delivers pure still water."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Purified Still Water Dasani uses a state of the art reverse osmosis process that precisely delivers pure still water. Ingredients: Water, Calcium Chloride, Magnesium Sulphate, Sodium Bicarbonate."
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The close-up of the bottle label disappears. He gestures with both hands to emphasize his points. Cars continue to pass on the road.
"The public might have assumed it was mineral water, but Coca-Cola never said that. In fact, what they had done is spent a long time with focus groups, taste testing and refining the mineral balance and the flavor of the water, making a version of Dasani that was ideal for the British palate."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. A newspaper clipping with the headline "Dasani grabs Piccadilly" appears on the left side of the screen, detailing Coca-Cola's marketing plans for Dasani.
"Dasani launched with the first stage of what was going to be a 7 million pound advertising campaign on February 10th, 2004, and it went okay. For weeks, the British public either didn't notice or didn't care that it was tap water, the same way Americans don't seem to care."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Grocer, January 2004 Dasani grabs Piccadilly Coca-Cola has revealed details of the first stage of a marketing blitz behind new water brand Dasani. The new offering, a filtered H2O enhanced with minerals, will be officially launched in the UK on February 10 when the company is due to hit the streets with the first phase of a £7m first-year spend."
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The newspaper clipping changes to a new headline: "Fury as Coke bans rival," discussing Coca-Cola's contracts with retailers.
"There were occasional rough patches for the launch, like shopkeepers in Buxton, a town famous for its mineral water, complaining about being forced by their contracts with Coca-Cola to replace bottles of the local water in coolers with Dasani. Or the regulators launching an investigation into whether Coca-Cola should be using the word pure on the label."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Grocer, February 2004 Fury as Coke bans rival Simon Mowbray Coca-Cola has landed itself in hot water with independent retailers – after banning them from stocking rival brands of bottled H2O in its chillers. The drinks giant has launched its first assault on Britain’s bottled water market with Dasani, a filtered water fortified with minerals. It plans to"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The newspaper clipping disappears, and a new graphic appears on the right showing a Dasani website screenshot with the slogan "CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT SPUNK" circled in red.
"But, on the whole, it went okay. A lot of articles written more recently claim that Coca-Cola's first blunder was copying an American Dasani slogan, "Can't live without spunk," which has a very different meaning in the UK. But I don't think that's true."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "Coca-Cola GB, via The Register, 11 March 2004"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The Dasani website screenshot is replaced by a newspaper clipping with the headline "Introducing Dasani – the water with added, er, protein."
"The only actual evidence I could find of that slogan is a screenshot on one tech news website that liked innuendo. Looks like a web designer reused some American ad images in one part of a flash-based website that almost no one saw. No other article from the time that I can find, anyway, mentions that slogan at all."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Register, 11 March 2004 Bootnotes Introducing Dasani – the water with added, er, protein Revealed: Coca Cola's secret ingredient By Lester Haines 11 Mar 2004 @ 14:51 Coca Cola is to be applauded for introducing enhanced water in the form of Dasani - a 'cool, vibrant, refreshingly blue' improvement on the"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The newspaper clipping disappears. He gestures with both hands to emphasize his points. Cars continue to pass on the road.
"The advertising was put together by Coca-Cola's UK division. They're not stupid. In fact, the advertising team was probably pretty good. Really, all things considered, the launch had been successful."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. Several newspaper clippings appear on screen, overlapping, all with headlines about Dasani being tap water, and mentioning the "Only Fools and Horses" sitcom.
"And then it all went wrong, very, very quickly. Exactly three weeks after launch, March the 2nd, most of the major British newspapers simultaneously put out big stories announcing that Dasani was bottled tap water. Most of them mentioned that episode of Only Fools and Horses, and all of them made a lot of noise implying that it was a rip-off, although perhaps they didn't put it in quite so few words."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking, slightly surprised
Text: "THE REAL STING Coca-Cola's 95p bottled water comes out of a tap near Peckham The Sun, 2 March 2004", "The real thing? Coke's bottled water is from a tap in Sidcup Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2004", "Coca-Cola's 95p a bottle water comes out of a tap near Peckham (didn't Del Boy try that?) Daily Mail, 2 March 2004", "How Coca-Cola is selling water from the tap at 95p a bottle Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2004", "It's the real thing... Coke's tap water from Sidcup The Times, 2 March 2004"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The newspaper clippings disappear, and a new split-screen appears on the left showing a still image of Graham Hiscott with text identifying him. The background is an office with stacks of papers.
"And back when a lot of people actually read physical newspapers, front-page news saying that your product is a rip-off does make a big difference to sales. But why was it suddenly news everywhere at the same time after three silent weeks? The missing piece of the puzzle is one journalist called Graham Hiscott, who worked for the Press Association."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "GRAHAM HISCOTT Press Association The Money Programme: Coke's Water Bomb BBC, 2004"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The split-screen on the left changes to show a person (presumably Graham Hiscott) flipping through a magazine at a desk, then a close-up of the magazine page with Dasani branding.
"And as he tells it, as part of a brilliant half-hour documentary made later that year, he happened to be flipping through an issue of The Grocer, an industry magazine, at work one day. And, you know, that's that's an event that the the documentary asked him to recreate for some reason."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Money Programme: Coke's Water Bomb BBC, 2004"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The split-screen on the left changes to show a newspaper clipping with the headline "Giant fortifications" and a specific line highlighted: "Coca-Cola launched mineral-enhanced treated tap water Dasani in the United States in 1999."
"Now, The Grocer is an ideal source for journalists looking for the next story about a product recall or a weird marketing strategy. And that issue of the magazine had a feature on bottled water. And there was just one line in one article describing Dasani as a mineral-enhanced treated tap water, which when written so clearly, seemed odd. So Graham called Coca-Cola, and they said, yes."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Grocer, February 2004 FOCUS ON BOTTLED WATER Giant fortifications Big brands are set to muscle in on a young category Bottled waters are a new phenomenon and accounted for less than 2% of the packaged natural and flavoured water market last year, according to Zenith International. However, all this looks set to change as soft drinks giants Coca-Cola, Nestlé and GlaxoSmithKline get to grips with the category. Coca-Cola launched mineral-enhanced treated tap water Dasani in the United States in 1999. It is the second bestselling water there and made its UK debut last month backed by a £7m round of"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He points his right hand towards a large, light-colored industrial building in the distance, indicating the bottling plant. The newspaper clipping disappears.
"Yeah, Dasani is is treated tap water from the main supply at their bottling plant, right there, in Sidcup, South London, 10 miles from Peckham, where that episode of Only Fools and Horses was set."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, pointing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking, pointing
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with his right hand. The background shows the industrial building and trees. Cars pass on the road.
"A few hours after that phone call, there was an article on the Press Association news wire about where Dasani came from. Articles on the news wire don't usually go straight to the public. They go to other journalists first who can use them or adapt them. And the editors at most of the newspapers correctly decided that, yes, this was something their readers would be interested in."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. A newspaper clipping appears on the left side of the screen with the headline "Water world braced for Dasani." A specific line is highlighted: "But one senior buyer warned that some consumers may be put off by the water's lack of provenance."
"Six months earlier, when Coca-Cola was setting out preparations for their Dasani launch, The Grocer had run a small article about it. And there's a line in there that's prophetic. One senior buyer warned that some consumers may be put off by the water's lack of provenance."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Grocer, September 2003 Water world braced for Dasani DASANI But one senior buyer warned that some consumers may be put off by the water's lack of provenance. He said: "The"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. The newspaper clipping disappears, and a new one appears on the left with the headline "Coca-Cola sticks in there with controversial Dasani." A quote from Coca-Cola's marketing director is highlighted.
"And now, Coke bottling tap water for 3,000% markup was on the front pages. But Coca-Cola and Dasani soldiered on. That didn't kill the brand. They put more marketing budget behind it. They gave away three bottles in supermarkets. Another article in The Grocer from back then quotes Coca-Cola's UK marketing director. "There cannot be many people who do not know about Dasani now as a result of the press coverage. I cannot imagine how much we would have had to spend to get that level of awareness.""
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Grocer, March 2004 Coca-Cola sticks in there with controversial Dasani Enterprises, insisted: “There cannot be many people who do not know about Dasani now as a result of the press coverage. I cannot imagine how much we would have had to spend to get that level of awareness. In fact,"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures emphatically with his right hand, pointing towards the industrial building. The newspaper clipping disappears. He looks directly at the camera.
"There is a theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity, after all. The final nail in the coffin was the contamination. They'd had a bad batch of calcium chloride delivered right here. It's one of the chemicals they use in the purification process, and tests revealed that their water contained above the legal limits of bromate, a cancer-causing chemical. There wasn't anywhere near enough in the water to do harm, but there was enough that it was outside the legal limits. So within 24 hours, every unsold bottle was recalled back here, and the shelves were empty. Just like Del Boy, not only had Coca-Cola sold tap water in a bottle, but they'd sold contaminated tap water in a bottle."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking, serious
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. A screenshot of Google UK search results for "Dasani" appears on the left, showing news articles about the disaster. He gestures with his right hand.
"Dasani never returned to shops. Never launched in France or Germany, like they were planning. And to this day, if you type Dasani into Google UK, you get results about the disaster, news reports from 2004 on the first page. Coca-Cola launched other water brands, of course, but as far as I can tell, they all look to be spring waters or mineral waters. They're not hooking up a purifier to the tap. Not over here."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
Text: "The Guardian, 19 March 2004 Things get worse with Coke The Times, 19 March 2004 Coca-Cola withdraws 'Sidcup tap' water", "Google search results for "Dasani" showing news reports from 2004"
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with both hands. The Google search results disappear. He walks towards a road sign.
"There are other folks selling purified tap water, of course, but that's usually the cheap option on the shelf. Not that it matters. It's all just water. And I reckon Coca-Cola could absolutely have made this work. Maybe they still could. There is a world in which one journalist didn't use the words tap water, or another journalist didn't happen to look at one particular article, and where the launch went just fine, and Britain got used to the fact that drinking bottled purified tap water could be normal."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking
The man continues walking and speaking, holding the Dasani bottle. He gestures with both hands. He walks past the road sign and then stops, looking at the bottle. He then throws the bottle off-screen to his left, and then another bottle, before turning back to the camera. On-screen text appears: "THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW" and social media handles.
"After all, if it had been a popular brand, no one would want to admit their purchases might be questionable. It's a lot easier to just say, yeah, that's fine. Of course. I know it's tap water. Then go, hang on, I've been paying how much for what? And worry that you might have been ripped off. I don't think the Dasani disaster was inevitable. But it happened. And all that's left, 16 years later, is a few bottles like this."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• walking, gesturing, then throwing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — engaged, talking, then smiling
Text: "THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW tomscott.com @tomscott @tomscottgo"
The man smiles and gestures towards the road. A large white lorry with blue crates on its flatbed drives past him on the road. He watches it pass, then turns back to the camera.
"Shame about the people honking, wasn't it? Yeah. They might have, I now, I'll tell you what, we turned that well, because here comes a lorry. Shame about the people honking, wasn't it? Yeah. They might have, I now, I'll tell you what, we turned that well, because here comes a lorry."
Setting: outdoor sidewalk next to a road, industrial area — overcast daylight
People (1):
• standing, gesturing, wearing light grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, short, light brown hair — smiling, talking, looking at lorry
Text: "THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW tomscott.com @tomscott @tomscottgo"