High-end Water Brand Lifestyle Marketing

In recent years, the high-end water industry, to which the public may not be so familiar, has been on the rise. A number of domestic brands, such as Kunlun Mountains, Tibet Spring 5100, Evergrande Spring, gain strong performance in last few years, even starting to break the momentum of leading market position dominated by the foreign brands like Evian, Perrier, etc.However, the major issue that domestic high-end water enterprises encountered is how to effectively influence and communicate with target consumers through accurate marketing activities. Brands like Evian and Perrier have successfully turned a bottle of water into a symbol of lifestyle, where products are promoted in a combination way of culture, fashion, sports and art to boost consumers spending. In contrast, domestic brands are subject to unclear marketing positioning, packaging homogeneity, and product-driven(not lifestyle-driven) marketing strategies, whose stimulations on consuming desire are very limited.Based on theories of lifestyle marketing, we are aiming to identify the common marketing issues existing among the high-end water through the comparison between foreign brands water and domestic brands. With case studies of Kunlun Mountains Water’s marketing events, as well as in-depth analysis on consumers of high-end water, we are intending to explore the necessity and advantage of applying lifestyle marketing method to the promotion of high-end water.Enterprises in high-end water industry should not only add brand status to products, but cultural values, turning the consuming experience into a lifestyle pursuit. Only when enterprises get insight into target consumer groups, master consumers lifestyle features, create specific brand status, can enterprises avoid falling into a vicious homogenization competition with other brands. The essence of high-end water marketing is to sell a lifestyle, not just a bottle of water.