Nalgene — Alex McKinley

We left the water bottle category.

Background: The Nalgene Water Fund is a program that helps guarantee clean water access to communities with water insecurity.
The Ask:Give people a reason to choose the Nalgene Water Fund Bottle over other water bottles.
Insight:
Your water bottle says something about you.
Strategy:
Nalgenes are all about the water.

Grabbing Our Bottles: Researched Nalgene Water Fund to understand goals, efforts, and impact.
Social listening to identify Nalgene’s place in the water bottle landscape, and overlap with trend agnostic consumers.
Conducted a survey to determine the influence of trends on water bottle purchasing habits.

Filling Up:

Nalgene created the original reusable water bottle with conservation and sustainability in mind all the way back in 1949.

Today, the water bottle industry has turned into an arms race of straws and insulation.

The average American owns 7.24 reusable bottles, and we know why:

Every few years the world becomes obsessed with a flashier bottle.

But Nalgene has never lost focus on what matters. They have doubled down on their sustainability efforts with the Nalgene Water Fund, where every special edition bottle helps fight water insecurity.

And owning one says something about you:

“When it comes to water bottles, all I care about is the water.”

Not every bottle can say the same. Buying your third Stanley in a new color? That just says you’re a sucker for a trend.

We spoke to the trend agnostic, the people who see past the trends and just want their bottle to be about the water.

That works for us, we’ve always felt the same way. Our strategy became:

All about the water.

But how can Nalgene prove it’s all about the water while selling products in a category that seems to be focused on everything but?

By leaving the category it started.

Nalgene is deciding to leave the water bottle category. It’s been a good run, but this isn’t the same game we fell in love with all those years ago.

We know you’re upset, but it’s going to be okay.

Just because we don’t make water bottles any more, doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to Nalgene.

Introducing Bottles for Water.

We make bottles for water now.

Some might call it semantics, but for Nalgene, it’s a bold shift. We’re moving away from an industry tainted by overconsumerism to put what’s most important back in the spotlight: water.

Bottles for Water expands the Nalgene Water Fund’s contributions beyond special edition bottles to the entire Nalgene lineup, amplifying efforts to support communities facing water insecurity.

Now that Nalgene makes Bottles for Water, their impact is larger than ever.
But there are still so many unused metal bottles, uselessly sitting around, helping nobody.
How can we change that?

By melting them down.

Nalgene is turning America’s metal bottle overconsumerism crisis into an opportunity to fight water insecurity, by turning unused metal water bottles into water infrastructure for communities in need.

Anyone can crush their metal water bottle in REI’s across the country to get a free Meltdown bottle.

Through this NWF initiative, we’re giving every unused water bottle the opportunity to become a Bottle For Water in their own right by melting them down into pipes, water towers, wells, and more.

“Sometimes what’s dead must be burned away to make room for new life. Sometimes you just have to step back and let the brittle bits ignite - but once those flames begin to dance their caustic dance, don’t you dare look the other way. Don’t close your eyes. Watch closely and let that image seer itself forever on your mind. Remember what it looked like in the midst of the soot, the smoke, and the haze. Remember, so you don’t repeat the same conditions that required such a blaze.”

― Cristen Rodgers

Putting on a show.
Once every bottle is crushed and collected, we’ll livestream The Meltdown on Nalgene’s site.

Team: Joy Zhou (ST), Caleb Mayer (CBM), Bailey Wood (AD), Smera Dahl (AD), Kedi Kickman (CW)

Want to hear about the other version of The Meltdown?
Let’s talk.

CONTACT