Something about the name Vitaminwater is kind of reassuring, isn't it? I don't particularly care for flavored water, and I never buy water at all. But if I were so inclined, I might look at the Vitaminwater bottle, thinking that it sounds better than some of it's brethren.
Now, I'm an avid nutrition label reader, so I'd take one look at the VintaminWater label and know that this was not a totally healthy drink. One bottle is 2.5 servings, each with 13 grams of sugar. That comes to 32.5 grams per bottle, and let's be real: who ever buys a bottle of any of these drinks and portions it out into 8 ounce servings. Right. Nobody.
By comparison, a 12 ounce can of Dr. Pepper has 27 grams of sugar per serving and is (allegedly) 1.5 servings. That's a total of 40.5 grams. So when you look at the numbers, you see Vitaminwater has almost as much sugar as soda.
From John Robbins, writing for the Huffington Post:
In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage."
Does this mean that you'd have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named "vitaminwater," a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?
Or does it mean that it's okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?
I like to think of myself as slightly smarter than the average consumer. And it seems to me you don't name a product Vitaminwater unless you want people to think it's a healthy beverage.
I propose changing the name to PissJuice. Or maybe Toiletwater. Or Onedropofjuiceandsugarwater.
At least then nobody would sue them for health claims. Marketing Onedropofjuiceandsugarwater would be tricky, as would printing the labels. But I'm confident Coke has the money and the talent to make it happen. I just hope somebody from Coke reads this post...