Tappening Taps into a Need

Not a new story, but certainly one of the most compelling ones in which a small group of influential consumers created a huge ripple effect of demand for a coveted item, like the bag at Whole Foods that everyone waited in line for.

When Mark DiMassimo, who founded and runs Digobrands, and Eric Yaverbaum, who runs Ericho Communications, founded Tappening, they intended the site, www.tappening.com, to be an educational website where the public could find up-to-the minute information about the detrimental damages the bottled water industry was causing the environment. They personally financed an inventory of reusable water bottles that were available for purchase on the site. DiMassimo and Yaverbaum expected these 39,000 bottles to sell throughout the first year of their new project and self finance their marketing message. Their initial inventory sold within 36 hours.

For a beverage company, a campaign like Tappening forever changes the value of bottled water. The question remains—how will the bottled water makers deal with that? So far, Coke is offering no comment. What remains is that there’s a value that lives on in regard to portability and functional aspects. But what price does that come at? Let’s look at the bottle. Will Coca-Cola encourage refilling their bottles?

The answers aren’t simple. This opens up a whole new set of issues. You’ll start to see filtration products on the horizon. Imagine a bottle with a built-in filter that you can refill, say 10 times. Each time the filter adds a functional aspect like electrolytes that you desire to your water.

Along those lines, Pur Water Filter known for its in-home filtration has been offering its Exstream portable bottle purification system to the outdoor sporting community. But no one has bought 39,000 units of it in 36 hours.