My friend Hart emails me this morning:

>Saw an ad this morning for Dasani water. Most blatant marketing to e takers
ever. 28 seconds of rave like shit. Then a hot woman gets naked in her
bedroom and crawls into bed with...a giant teddy bear.

> Tagline: Water for drug culture. (Should have been)

> hr

then read an article in adweek magazine . The last paragraph here is the clincher. Great minds...

Given that, it makes sense that the first new spot, "Excitement," shows a young female Dasani drinker not in a yoga pose or hiking but rather enjoying a frenetic night of New York City clubbing. But here's the problem with this breakthrough entertainment positioning: Ever since the seminal debut of the Charlie Girl some 30 years ago (she was out for a night on the town by herself, dressed in—here's the gasp part—a pantsuit), women have been seen similarly out and about in commercials for shampoo, soft drinks, jeans, beer, "ice" beverages, you name it. Ironically, by abandoning the limited and stilted positioning of typical bottled-water spots, Dasani has adopted some of the most overused imagery of all, the Sex and the City-fication of women's culture.

So the idea is not exactly fresh (even if the jerky, hyperfast and gritty video look of the spot, and its ominous house music, drowns out the glamour aspect). But putting our Dasani drinker in the milieu of the club also leads to unintended trouble. One young woman, a perfect target, watched the spot and said, "Ew, I wouldn't go near anyone drinking water in a club—it means they're on ecstasy."