organic fortnight merges into london design festival…

It’s the final week of Organic Fortnight and we’ve had a great response to our customer promotions. I’ve been doing a series of customer tastings to introduce new customers and say hi to some of our long standing friends, and the atmosphere has been really positive.

Whole Foods Market in particular have got their stores behind the integrity of Aquapax in putting together a great customer offer for the whole month of September. There’s never been a better time to buy Aquapax in town, while out of town, anyone who’s been to Brighton recently without visiting VBbites Café at Hove lagoon, needs to make another trip – yes their vegan food is worth it and of course they serve wonderfully chilled Aquapax.

Next week, is another major milestone in our brief history, as we celebrate The Westminster Collection’s networking event, ‘A Night To Remember With TWC‘, at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday 22nd. The exquisitely positioned networking evening has been a complete sell-out, with over 850 pre-registrations. Aquapax is the mineral water sponsor for this prestigious evening, so it will be especially rewarding to see our iconic blue cartons wandering off down the Strand after the show.

At the same time as the TWC evening, Aquapax are also the prime sponsors at the oh so chic and totally inspirational Gallery FUMI launch party in Tabernacle St. and also at the more intimate Gallery FUMI and Studio Toogood Corn Craft dinner at their Hoxton Square venue. Both of these events kick-off their celebrations for the 2009 London Design Festival and we’re thrilled to be a part of the festivities.

The Aquapax ‘water wall’ (pictures to follow) is being designed by the immensely talented Pierric Verger who’s put a lot of himself into getting the wall right. The intention is to communicate the flowing energy of Aquapax to everyone visiting the gallery, as well as to keep the water chilled for those partaking of non-alcoholic refreshment.

Enquiries so far this week include Denmark and Puerto Rico, but then it is only Monday. Who ever said dreams don’t come true just didn’t work hard enough…

Read Full Post »

summer’s a busy time…

yours truly with the maestro Paul Rankin & his Aquapax

As always, there’s been a lot going on in Aquapax world over the past few weeks. It’s the silly season of shows at weekends and store samplings mid week, so taking a holiday has been the furthest thing from my mind, despite jovial e-mails from folk who read my blog wondering when I’m back.

We had a really successful 3 day Hatfield House Country Show this year, where the good fortune of being positioned next to Miles (the curry sauce man) certainly raised our sampling customer numbers. There was a special atmosphere in the Food Hall, as a few of us took turns at broadcasting the Ashes criscket score to visitors (and one another), causing spontaneous nervous laughter and the occassional ripple of applause. A particularly uplifting moment of the show was when an off duty representative of a well known supermarket engaged with me on why I created Aquapax, leading to an exchange of cards towards the end of the conversation… (watch this space)

The bank holiday weekend just gone was less illustrious, as we took a last minute stand in the Food Hall at the Stoneleigh Park Festival. The event has so much potential, but alas the Food Hall wasn’t laid out terribly well… Life is what we make of it, and in this instance, the time we had as ‘traders’ allowed us to get to know one another socially. The ‘Dunkirk spirit’ kicked in and the ‘celebrity chefs’ coordinated by the professionals at ‘chefs on stage’  were generous in their support of all the trade at the show, encouraging the public to engage and sample our wares. There are a lot worse ways to spend a bank holiday weekend and I’m grateful for the spontaneous social time ‘Neil waterguy’ spent with ‘Curry Sauce John’ & ‘Chocolate Heaven Lucy’.

Speaking of chefs, I met a wonderful Chef called Claire Harbron and get on with her like a lost friend. We’ve got a great alliance going with her and her fellow professionals at the dalston kitchen. They create the iconic ‘dk’ lunch boxes seen at the best photo shoots and outdoor events across town, where it’s a fantastic accolade they’ve chosen Aquapax as their water in the box! Kind of sums up their quality proposition really, which shouldn’t be any surprises for anyone who’s tried Aquapax.

Got a lot more web work to do in the coming weeks with my webtech friend Ian. We’ve discovered a typo on our French site (read carefully) and we also need to create a page for our new Dutch distribution alliance. Also want to plan the site development as the revolution is growing now and I really want to communicate that growth to keep our new recruits smilling. In the meanwhile, here’s something else to keep you smiling – our latest internet advertisement ‘the guillotine’ It’s all go in water world… 🙂

Read Full Post »

a music festival and a home delivery service…

Life has never been boring and this last weekend was spent enjoying some wonderfully talented bands playing live music at the Chalgrove Live Music Festival in Oxfordshire, where Aquapax was one of their core sponsors. 

The Festival is designed for people to enjoy live music in a family fun atmosphere while raising money for local worthy causes – this year’s charity was ‘crossroads – caring for carers’.

They had 20 bands booked in total and the face painters and fun-fair helped bring a real family feel to this intimate live music fest, which was real fun to be a part of. 

My son and I took a stand outside the beer tent  to offer ice cool Aquapax original (and energy drinks) to the bands as well as for the warm and weary members of the public – drinking beer for 12 hours in serious sunshine isn’t for the faint hearted, although we met plenty of people willing to try! 

All things considered, the event was well run and there were some genuinely nice people there. We had a really enjoyable weekend in the sunshine and it was great that the weather folk got it so wrong on this occasion!

zebra guy at the CLMF 2009

Bands worthy of a mention from this particular critic were:

The Motowners ; Strange Folk (amazing voice) ; Quo Incidence (if you like that kind of thing) ; All Right Now (must be my generation) ; Jiv’in Jules Jazz Ensemble (pity a lot of folk were still in bed) ; The Whoo (?) Ann Duggan (amazing voice) ; and of course The Kommitments (always end with a good boogie…

Coming home to a warm shower and a proper bed are always a bonus of a festival – or any weekend in a tent for that matter!

A bit of good news this week is that Aqua Amore – ‘the UK’s largest water delivery specialist’ has responded to our customer demand in taking on home distribution for Aquapax across London and the home counties, plus wider distribution nationwide. Now the challenge is to dust off the enquiries database to see if we can bring this new alliance to their attention and help generate some home delivery orders in due course.

Tomorrow’s another day in the big smoke and then Friday is looking like a journey to Peterborough beckons. What is it they say about winners never quitting and quitters never winning…

Read Full Post »

quick and honest; that’s the pitch!

Even this far down the road, I still meet a number of people who don’t get the Aquapax proposition and who sadly won’t allow however many seconds it would take to look at our pack design and fathom it out.

official Aquapax logo

The proposition could be perceived as too complicated I suppose, so I keep on trying to simplify my pitch description to capture the essence of what Aquapax is in however many milli seconds people give me.

Current soundbites embrace: “It’s one of the purest mineral water’s in the world – even suitable for infants!” or “It’s pure mineral water sealed airtight and protected from light which keeps it tasting fresh!” or “It’s premium quality natural mineral water in the lowest carbon impact package option on the planet!” or “It’s pure portable water in a leach free re-usable package!” or “I’m an environmentalist and hate plastic – this is my answer to the scourge of plastic bottled water!” or “We won best bottled water of 2008 and it’s not even in a bottle!” or “It’s natural mineral water in a carton, so it stays colder for longer and you can re-fill it when it’s empty!”… there’s more, but I’m sure you get the idea.

While all the soundbites are true, as a brutally honest lady told me earlier today, they’re clearly not breaking through at the level of the masses, where sensational news or celebrity association or selling through years of advertising propaganda are what’s actually piercing the public’s earplugged consciousness. (she didn’t say the bit about ear plugged consciousness – that was me trying to paint a picture of an ignoramous.)

I clearly need to spend some time pondering how to get our marketing message simplified further, to help the mainstream get it.  I don’t honestly believe our premium quality natural mineral water in a paper carton will ever appeal to the entire mainstream, but if anyone has any enlightenment to share, I’m open minded and I promise to give you as much time as you need to convince me – within reason… 🙂

Read Full Post »

re-use and then recycle…

The Gunwharf food festival was fun on Saturday and I met some ‘old friends’ from last year when Hagar and I shared a stand with a funky mini.

It’s amazing to see how my encouragement for people to re-use and recycle their empty Aquapax has really taken off – particularly the re-use aspect. A number of people report now buying Aquapax as much for the smart looking disposable container as for the award winning natural mineral water quality inside.

The way they see it; their kids are already losing the expensive refillable nalgene bottles at school, whereas giving them a fresh Aquapax each week works just as well and if they do lose it (or jump on it for the loud bang noise) it’s no big deal. One chap remarked that his kids take theirs to school re-filled with tap water (tap water in the fridge overnight tends to lose its chlorine taste) and he takes his empty Aquapax re-filled with something a little stronger to various sporting events he attends.

The (unofficial) record for refilling an empty Aquapax used to be held by a student at Sussex Uni who used hers for a reported 2 months. I thought that took eco-consciousness to another level, but then we heard from a father and son who’ve used their Aquapax cartons for a whole year, refilling them whenever they go fishing so they can still have a reasonably cool drink at the end of their day. 

With this level of eco-frugality, I can see we’re going to have to open some new markets to ensure we have a sustainable business model… On that note, we’ve finally found a distributor to deliver Aquapax to your home within London (minimum 2 cases = 48 units per delivery). That complements the established delivery system for Aquapax original through Ideal World TV (which links from the column on the right) – I know that doesn’t help if you want our new design Aquapax and live outside of London, but at least it’s a start.  More details to follow as we get the order / delivery system working seamlessly 🙂

Read Full Post »

iod convention 2009

Yesterday was the day and a fine old affair it was too… Beautiful weather, a comprehensive array of talented business professionals as the speakers, and a box of guests who were good fun to be with. Well you don’t really want to spend a day in a box with people you’d rather not be with, let’s face it.

The video showreel, in case you missed it up on the BIG screen at the Royal Albert Hall is here and the link to the IoD convention website is here for a more comprehensive overview of the day.

The best part for me, was seeing more than 2000 people drinking Aquapax in one place at one time and smilling while listening to the iconic c-l-i-i-c-c-k noise resounding around the wonderful Royal Albert Hall as the ‘celebrity’ guest speakers opened their Aquapax to refresh themselves on stage. That and listening to Sir Stuart Rose, who made a lot of sense to me! So much so, I’ve even written to him today to try and take his inspiration a little further…

Oh yes and the morning presentation from The King of Shaves Company (Tim Wright) was pretty good too. It’s a good speaker who engages with his audence and doesn’t need to constantly refer to his own notes and Tim is a good speaker.

I hope to put some photos of the IOD convention in the photos section of this blog soon, so do come back to see if you can identify yourself captured on camera…

Read Full Post »

the video is on youtube…

OK, hardly a press announcement, but it is ‘earth day’ after all and this is our contribution…  Can only hope the site condron picks up on it and we get some ratings for our efforts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTH0GZLRo_M

stay happy – it is a beautiful earth after all and it’s down to you (and me) to keep it this way… 🙂

Read Full Post »

there’s revolution in the air…

These words form part of the design across the top of our beautiful new Aquapax carton (thanks again SunHouse) – they are personal and inspired in part by the wonderfully under-recognised poet Mr. Bob Dylan. I wasn’t much into Bob when I was growing up, but my brother Paul was and the song ‘tangled up in blue’ was one where the words always sounded ‘easier’ on my then young ears, despite not really understanding their meaning at the time. (give me a break it was 1974 and I’m not that old… yet)

‘There’s revolution in the air’ now sums up a feeling for where we are right here and now, with growing global consciousness and finally some genuinely powerful leaders who care for our planet. We simply haven’t had this critical mass until now and I can literally feel the change growing.

It is abundantly clear to me that there are so many organisations which treat their environmental policies the same way Enron treated their code of ethics policy. (it was 36 pages long apparently). Their first response to any introduction is ‘how much?’ which remains their only defense to supposed leaders watching over them as to why they aren’t prepared to even try something different.

Very soon, these ‘organisations’ (includes political parties, councils, small and large companies and other ‘entities’) are going to have to stand up and be counted. Words have meanings and non-specific environmental policies with fluffy words and an original intent of boosting a share price, or winning kudos or votes will very soon have to be invoked.

Bring on the revolution Bob – it’s Aquapax time…

Read Full Post »

Hatfield House to Hampton Court via Notting Hill (Carnival)

We’ve been completely blessed with the summer so far this year, as weekend shows promoting water are no fun at all when it rains. By and large (why do people say that?) we’ve had tremendous weekend weather wherever we’ve been and the last couple of weekends have been no exception. We camped over (literally) at Hatfield House on the weekend of the 17^th August and had the luxury of travelling back to homes this weekend when we did the Hampton Court Show. Pity really as we missed the chance to sample some wonderful Stowford Press cider.

We’ve taken to going indoors in the food halls or cookery demonstration halls at the shows, as folk tend to make those destination points when they visit a country show; even if they do often wander in with an overpriced bottle of warm and plastic tasting water in their hands that they’ve begrudgingly procured from some grubby ice cream van.

We’ve been giving out free tasting samples – often abused by the few at the expense of the many, as the reality is people aren’t yet completely familiar with Aquapax, which is why we’re there in the first place. (Also to promote our Best Bottled Water of 2008 win and to try and make contact with a few retail chairmen or board members having a day out with their families.) A food hall environment is not only dry when it rains outside, but it’s an area where people stay open minded and receptive to finding out more about something new and innovative. Buying a genuine high quality product at a bargain show price is also great for marketing, as people don’t like being exploited when they’re in a captive market scenario.

Hagar continues to be a real brick and the mainstay of our outdoor event management committee. I generally turn up with a car full of stock (and as much ice as my little freezer can produce) and we work the stands together, but his enthusiasm for engaging with even quite challenging potential customers has made him quite the expert on Tetra Pak recycling and indeed on the subject of water quality as well.

This weekend was a double hitter, as we also sponsored the water for the children’s’ parade at the London Notting Hill Carnival on Sunday and I was really disappointed not to have been able to get down there for a few souvenir photos of the event; our first large scale outdoor venture.

As companies grow, people take for granted a promotional give away for a few thousand people, but when you’re a small business these things cost real money and not being there to share in the atmosphere makes them somehow more expensive.

There’s something quite poetic about our 2 London events being so high profile yet so distinctly different as the Institute of Directors Annual Convention at the Royal Albert Hall and then on to the largest street party in Europe. We know our product quality spans all market segments, so it’s only appropriate that we spread our marketing budgets accordingly too.

The prize for the silly objection of this weekend goes to an unknown and rather sad faced lady who had a go at Hagar – despite his genuinely cheerful disposition – and levelled the criticism that our bottled water price is outrageous, (we weren’t selling the bottled water madam, they were the props) based on the fact that her son apparently pays just 1p for a plastic bottle of water in Dubai.  There’s no real answer to some people not getting a marketing proposition so badly, and we must try and find some more formal way to recognise their extreme reactions without causing a food fight… 🙂

Read Full Post »