Starbucks takes up cause for safe drinking water

Author: Theresa Howard
Date Published: 2005-08-03

When it comes to cool, cause-related marketing, water is hot.

Starting today, Starbucks will try to sell consumers on the idea of helping to clean up the world's water supply when it begins rolling out Ethos bottled water in its 5,000 U.S. stores. The company plans to donate $10 million over the next five years for clean-water sources in poor countries.

"More and more marketers are looking for ways to appeal to consumers on an emotional level by indicating that they support the sorts of causes that consumers support," says David Hessekiel, president at Cause Marketing Forum, a non-profit group that connects marketers with causes.

Nearly 20% of the world's people lack safe drinking water and about 4,500 children under age 5 die daily of resulting illness. Such statistics make water easy to support, Hessekiel says. "If you think about issues to do with the environment and resources, (water) is a very terrific and uniting issue compared to oil or energy policy."Helping the world's need for clean water was the founding mission of Ethos, created by Peter Thum and Jonathan Greenblatt in 2002 after a business trip by Thum in South Africa.

Starbucks bought the brand in April. Since founding Ethos, which also is sold in many Whole Foods and similar stores, the partners have donated about $100,000 of its sales to water efforts by non-governmental organizations Unicef and Care. "Ethos is more like a mission with a product vs. the other way around," Thum says.Starbucks plans to donate 5 cents per bottle of Ethos. It will sell for $1.80 for 700 milliliters at Starbucks, where water brands and prices vary by market.

The Ethos founders are helping the launch with a 10-week roadshow to Starbucks locations. Traveling in an Ethos-branded, low-emission RV, they will educate Starbucks employees on the world water crisis. "We are making them aware of what we do and that every bottle makes a difference," Greenblatt says.It can also help a company's bottom line. "The combination of having a corporate social conscience and being fiscally responsible goes hand in hand," Starbucks President Jim Donald says. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble is in the midst of making the world's clean-water crisis its primary philanthropic mission, using its Pur-brand household water-purification system.

It reported last week that a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that a system such as Pur is effective in cutting death rates from water-borne illnesses.P&G, too, is keeping an eye on its bottom line while doing good. "It's a cause-related issue, but we'll also learn things about low-income consumers that are going to help P&G overall," says Greg Allgood, P&G's director for children's safe drinking water.

USA TODAY

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