January 10, 2008

Coke Tapped for Tappening

In an effort to raise awareness on “tappening,” Mark DiMassimo, creative director of marketing shop DiMassimo Goldstein, and Eric Yaverbaum, president of PR agency Ericho Communications, is launching a PR campaign that entails sending one million used water bottles stuffed with messages to incoming Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent,AdAge reports.Tappening, recently named a hot item for 2008 by television trendwatcher Jane Buckinham, is a campaign designed to encourage consumers to drink tap water and buy reusable bottles sporting the slogan, “Think Global.  Drink Local.”  During another campaign launch in November, almost 39,000 bottles with the logo “What’s Tappening?” were sold within days.

With so much backlash in the past year against bottled water, the industry has become volatile and uncertain.  Last summer, San Francisco banned bottled water at city offices.  Nestle countered some of the backlash, while Anheuser-Busch opted to invest in the environmentally-conscious Icelandic Glacial spring water.

For his part, DiMassimo says that Nestle and PepsiCo are worthy targets of the tappening campaign, “But Coke is the biggest, and one thing you learn is to start big.”

Coke says that it will happily recycle the bottles.

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