bling
From super-premium to super-luxury. This is kind of ridiculous, but pretty entertaining. L.A. brand Bling H2O sells bottled water decorated with Swarovski Crystals for $40 (£20). It takes badge branding to a whole new tier and is mainly geared for the Hollywood circuit (and was actually part of the MTV music awards).
It actually taps an interesting insight (to be the Cristal of water), except for one thing. The actual water is sourced from Western Tennessee, and they proudly toute it as the winner of some water-tasting festival in West Virginia. While I love Tennessee and I’m sure they have great-tasting water, this proposition certainly isn’t about taste. It’s about caché. Western Tennessee just doesn’t have the same Paris Hilton-esque superficial glitz (and that’s a good thing for Tennessee). I would have thought Bling would find a source a little more exotic (and bling-able) or that has some taste heritage like Napa Valley or something. If you’re gonna go "bling" to the extreme, you’d think you’d want to go all the way on every possible thing. Funny.
When you’ve got nothing left to sell, you’ve got to get creative. When you’re out of creativity you can always go with class. When you’re out of class, you go with bling. When you’re out of bling, you just add more. And therein lies the beauty of consumerism.