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(May 2009) posted on Sat Oct 10, 2009

By Bill Wynkoop

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For the first five years of this millennium, my family had made a habit of spending a summer week in the Mecca that is New York City. During our 2002 trip, I walked into Dean & DeLuca's and spied Voss Water for the first time. The slim, straight-sided bottle with the large vertical logo and monochromatic palette immediately caught my eye, and I was soon on my way home with a half dozen bottles in my bag. Much to my wife's chagrin, I had of course purchased nothing else but the water—so I was soon on my way back to the store.

Since that day, I've been paying extra attention to the ultra-competitive category that is water. Because it is a very mature category, it really takes some effort to distinguish a product.

Mature competitiveness

SEI first appeared to me a couple of years ago in a thruway convenience store along the interstate from Syracuse to Buffalo. Their simple, uncluttered approach to labeling immediately stood out because, well, they do not use a primary label. Instead, they emboss their product name along with the message to "Drink Water." Coupled with a custom flask shape that was easy to hold and that placed an emphasis on portability, they were the perfect impulse purchase for these stop-and-go thoroughfares.

SEI chose the flask style for a number of good reasons, the most relevant of which is said portability. Being able to put a bottle of water into a pants pocket or a car door or a purse was a must for their development team. The sleek, simple shape does that very well. Less apparent is that the shape is very stable and, unlike their round counterparts, a flask of SEI does not roll when tipped. Less apparent still is that it takes about 20% less physical space to store the same amount of water. Both Time and I.D. magazines have recognized the excellence of SEI's flask design.

Another product of great interest, also in a flask style, is Fred. The brainchild of cofounders Adam Gayner and Ariel Broggi, Fred is premium water with personality. "He" is, at the same time, both a counter culture and a cool approach to water. He is also generous in that he uses the capacity savings of his bottle style to give consumers more water—600 ml versus the conventional 500 ml.