Tap vs. Bottled Tap

by bgetch.

From PR Newswire:

NEW YORK: PR pros, Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo, have
collaborated on a campaign to promote the environmental benefits of tap
water. 

The objective of "Tappening" is to raise awareness
about carbon emissions from bottled water manufacturers, and to engage
consumers. This week, the campaign launched its "Message in the Bottle"
initiative, an effort that asks consumers to collect and insert
environmental messages inside empty water bottles. Organizers plan to
deliver the first million bottles to Neville Isdell, the CEO of Coca
Cola, the parent company of Dasani bottled water.

"It’s not
for the point of the stunt or novelty, it’s to make a statement about
wastefulness," said Yaverbaum, president and founder of Ericho
Communications.

Tappening is targeting Coca-Cola because
the company has yet to publicly identify the sources of Dasani water.
Dasani’s Web site states its water comes from the local water supply,
and is filtered through reverse osmosis.

Lisa Manley,
director of environmental communications at Coca-Cola, said the company
is unaware of the Tappening initiative. "If someone were to send us one
million empty bottles, we would welcome the opportunity to recycle
them," she said, adding the company recently invested $60-million in
what is expected to be the world’s largest bottle recycling
facility. Yet there are no plans to change the way it labels Dasani
water.

"The label states very clearly that it is purified water," Manley said. 

Tappening’s
PR efforts include working with environmental bloggers, broadcast
media, and extensive outreach to short-lede consumer, business, and
marketing publications. The next phase of media outreach will target
radio and long-lede publications. Additionally, the Tappening Web site
and MySpace page instruct people how to participate and purchase its
water bottles to spread the campaign message, Yaverbaum noted.

"The
bottle’s making a statement that ‘I care,’" Yaverbaum added. "It’s not
that I care whether people buy the bottle, I just want them to stop
drinking bottled water."

"From a communications perspective
this is easy," he said, referring to the media interest in bottled
water backlash. The biggest communications challenge is engaging
consumers who are not motivated to join the eco-movements or who are
skeptical about the effects of global warming, he said. 

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