A friend of mine is working on the ‘Tap That‘ petition for a “bottled water free UBC.” While she was telling me about the petition it got me thinking; bottled water is the greatest marketing scheme since facebook started getting people to pay money for virtual gifts to friends (literally nothing).

I’ll admit it, I buy bottled water! But why?! I could easily bring my reusable water bottle from home and fill it up anywhere with tap water or filtered water from water fountains and many accessible refill stations on campus. How is that companies like Nestle and Coca-Cola are bottling water, which anyone can get for free from their faucet, and selling it to people for a profit? I can tell you how! It’s convenient (you can get it anywhere!) and makes people feel healthy and these companies have even started to try and differentiate themselves based on where their water comes from, how its filtered, and what minerals are in it. This gives consumers a chance to develop brand favourites and loyalties. How often do you hear, “Ugh, I HATE the taste of Dasani water,” or “Fiji water is expensive but it’s totally worth it.” Companies like Voss have even targeted the luxury market by bottling their water in fancy contemporary looking glass containers and charging a premium for it.

Once people are sold on the convenience and then develop preferences for different brands of bottled water they’ll never rethink their decision. They won’t think about the effects on the environment and they won’t think about the other alternatives because they’ll be to busy picking up their favourite bottle of water from their local convenience store on the way to work.

An initiative in Ontario, called ‘Prevent-It‘, is working in association with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to achieve their common goal, “the elimination of all workplace illnesses and injuries.” They use a method of advertising, called ‘Shockvertisement,’ to get the message across that all workplace accidents can be prevented. The ethics behind this kind of advertising are always up for debate as it usually involves disturbing images to grab the viewers attention. In this case, examples of such advertisement methods can be found in the videos below. While I can appreciate the need to raise awareness for workplace safety I do not see a need for such graphic ads. Especially since accidents DO happen and achieving zero workplace accidents is an unrealistic goal.

In contrast, WorkSafeBC released a similar ad campaign called ‘Slips, Trips and Falls.’ Their campaign features videos with an identical message but they don’t use graphic images like the Ontario initiative does. Their videos still convey their message effectively but implies the disturbing images rather than features them.

Taking a closer look at the message of each campaign also reveals another key difference. ‘Prevent-It’ takes the ‘eliminate all accidents’ approach as opposed to WorkSafeBC’s approach which is just to remind everyone to stay safe.They also have specific informational videos on particular dangerous situations that can arise in the workplace. I find this campaign far more effective and I think that it connects to the audience in a more useful way. Scaring your audience may make them remember the ad but approaching them in a genuine fashion with informational videos is actually helpful.

‘Prevent-It’ Videos:

WorkSafeBC Video: