Drinking-water producers have found it is no longer enough to simply promote their brands on the basis of their core properties: purity, hygiene and freshness.

Marketers like Serm Suk and Nestle (Thai) are now cleverly finding ways to build their products - Crystal and Nestle Pure Life, respectively - through "emotional marketing".

Both companies have announced their use of emotional marketing, which involves activities and ads geared towards making people feel good about consuming their products.

Crystal's relaunch started in late 2005, followed by Nestle last year. They both believe emotional marketing is a great solution for gaining strong, long-term brand loyalty from people in Thailand.

The move by the two companies alerted the Bt15-billion drinking-water market. In order not to lose market share, competitor Singha Group - manufacturer of Singha pure water - adjusted its strategy and invested Bt50 million to increase ad frequency and marketing promotion in traditional shops last year.

And the vigorous competition continues this year.

"We want to tell people how useful it is to consume a lot of high-quality pure drinking water, which is the truth. Above all, water is the core ingredient of human life. Humans cannot live without drinking pure water," said Nestle Pure Life manager Budsarin Wuttiphanmaporn.

Heavy marketing activities and advertising were launched to communicate the new looks of the Crystal and Nestle Pure Life brands. Nestle allocated Bt100 million for 12 months, Serm Suk Bt20 million.

"People today are more health-conscious," said Serm Suk marketing director Dhitivute Bulsook. "They want hygienic products and are selective in buying them."

Hence, it's no surprise that the two brands continue to use "pure, hygienic and fresh" as their selling points, except they are being more heavily promoted than before.

Their different emotional marketing strategies are based on a good appearance by Serm Suk, and good relationships by Nestle.

Serm Suk's theme is "Charisma from Within". The brand stresses that drinking a lot of high-quality pure water enables consumers to have a beautiful look, shining from inside. This year, it has continued the theme by introducing its "Attractive" campaign, which communicates that its drinking water will nourish beautiful skin.

Meanwhile, Nestle focuses on how drinking water can create good relationships, starting from its first ads that showed lovers sharing warm feelings through drinking water. This year, it launched three new ads - "Basketball", featuring university students, "Chat" with office people and "Traffic" with drivers in a traffic jam - under the theme of "Share your lively life. Share with Nestle Pure Life".

Of course, heavy marketing requires a higher budget. Budsarin Wuttiphanmaporn said Nestle Pure Life's marketing budget last year was 20 per cent higher than the year before, while this year's is 50 per cent higher again than in 2006.

A heavy marketing budget does provide good returns. Both companies said they were successful in expanding their customer base to a younger health-conscious generation. Dhitivute said Crystal's sales grew by 45 per cent last year and its market share rose to 16 per cent.

Budsarin said Nestle's sales grew at the same rate as before it applied emotional marketing at 40 per cent, but she confirmed that Nestle had succeeded in building a new widespread awareness and achieved a 17-per-cent market share.

Looking at changes in the drinking-water market, Budsarin said that last year it had grown at the same rate as in previous years: 5-10 per cent. "No matter what fruit juice you drank before, you eventually have to come back to pure water," Budsarin said. "Humans cannot live without it."

He added that emotional marketing - together with the eternal quality of the water itself - would result in strong and sustainable long-term growth.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation