Aquapod: You've got trouble — yes, trouble — right here in water city

Obviously the folks over at Nestlé aren't bookofjoe regulars, because if they were they'd never have launched their newest specialty water under the name they chose: Aquapod.

Don't they realize what's befallen poor Profit Pod and TightPod recently?

Ah, well.

Things came to a complete halt here at bookofjoe World Headquarters™ when I read Bonnie S. Benwick's front-page story in today's Washington Post about new Aquapod water.

Nestlé marketing representative Nicole O'Connor told Benwick that research "showed that kids in the 6-to-12-year-old bracket found bottled water 'boring.' So the company went with distinctive repackaging rather than flavors or licensed characters on labels."

Looks like an excellent strategy from where I stand: as I said, no sooner was the ink dry in my head than I was in my car and headed for my neighborhood Kroger, where I was fortunate enough to score an 8-pack of Aquapod water (top).

I'm so excited.

O'Connor was right on the money in her comments; no other bottled water has ever come close to generating this degree of excitement in me.

w00t!

Here's the Post story, for those of you doomed to only read about instead of possess — much less imbibe — Aquapod.

Youngsters Prefer Their Water Neat

Used to be, the most fun a kid could have drinking water on a hot summer's day involved a squirt gun.

Now there's Aquapod, a squat plastic rocket that holds 11 ounces of "natural spring water" bottled by Nestlé Waters North America.

Since the product was launched nationwide in June, the company has heard that moms are labeling Aquapods with their children's names and tossing them into the neighborhood pool, to be grabbed by their thirsty broods. The disposables float, even when full. "That's not something we even intended," according to Nestlé marketing representative Nicole O'Connor.

Apparently fun is what has been missing from children's daily water intake. O'Connor says research showed that kids in the 6-to-12-year-old bracket found bottled water "boring." So the company went with distinctive repackaging rather than flavors or licensed characters on labels. With parents looking to cut back on their families' sugary and caffeinated drinks, and with school lunchbox demands just around the corner, the Greenwich, Conn.-based company found a quick hit on its hands.

"Kids got right away that this was a product just for them," O'Connor says. "It's a case of the same product given a different shape that has changed people's perceptions."

About plain, unflavored water .

Aquapods are packaged through Nestlé regional brands: Deer Park, Poland Spring, Zephyrhills, Calistoga, Arrowhead and Ozarka. In the Washington area, Aquapods are sold in eight-packs at Wal-Mart, Target and some Safeway stores.

Other bottled-water purveyors have steered their compact bottles toward lunchboxes as well. Fiji Water's new Lil'Fijis are being sold exclusively at Target, launched with a celebrity chef campaign to promote healthy eating for kids. Spring! by Dannon's small-bottle product line (Coca-Cola Co.) includes Fluoride to Go and safety twist cap options, and Coca-Cola's P.A.C.K. program, with lunchbox menu suggestions and tips, touts its "kid-sized packages with cool graphics." Nestlé has introduced an eight-ounce bottle of fluoridated water with a similar safety twist cap aimed at ages 2 to 6, which has propelled the company to No. 1 in sales in the fluoridated category.

Whatever ways the industry finds to serve us H20 — and there have been some annoying ones of late, including sport bottles that don't fit in vehicle cup holders — its companies can look forward to fun by the barrelful. The Beverage Marketing Corp. predicts that single-serve bottled water will be the best-selling beverage by 2012, overtaking sales of soda.