Get the latest gossip

‘Tap water is boring, so they invent new products’: how did humble H2O become such big business?

The must-have giant drinking cups are just the half of it. From designer ice to aqua mineralogists, water is a marketer’s dream

Stanley, formerly a fairly workaday US producer of vacuum flasks, has seen tenfold growth since 2020, when it appointed Terence Reilly (the man credited with turning Crocs sandals into high fashion) as president. It mostly consists of videos of people emptying single-use plastic bottles of water into their Stanley cup (undoing any supposed environmental benefits), along with vast amounts of ice, and mixing in various E-number-rich syrups and powders. Tanousis has chosen it because it’s extremely high in magnesium (110mg per litre), which is beneficial for, among other things, muscles, bones, nerves, blood sugar and menstrual pains, as well as preventing cardiovascular disease.

Get the Android app