Dasani

Dasani (pronounced ) is a popular brand of bottled water from the Coca-Cola company, launched in 1999, after the success of Aquafina (produced by Coca-Cola-rival PepsiCo). It is one of many brands of Coca-Cola water products sold around the world.

Dasani water differs in composition between its different markets. For example, Coca-Cola intended to launch it as a natural spring water in France and Germany, although this never went ahead after bad publicity in the United Kingdom.

Sizes, packages, and flavors
Regular Dasani water comes in the following sizes: 12 oz; 20 oz; 24 oz 'Sports Cap Bottle'; 1 L; 1.5 L; 300 mL; 12 oz fridge pack; 500 mL 6, 12, and 24-pack; and the 24 oz 6-pack.

The Dasani brand includes flavored water beverages, which use the sweetener sucralose (sold under the brand name "Splenda") as a sweetener. The flavors are lemon, grape, raspberry, and strawberry. The flavored variety comes in 20 fluid ounce bottles, 500 ml 6-packs, and 12 oz 8-packs.

The new Plus product line is similar to the flavored variety, only differing in the fact that these have vitamins added and come in Pomegranate-Blackberry, Orange-Tangerine, and Kiwi-Strawberry flavors. Dasani Plus comes in a 20 oz bottle.

United States
Coca-Cola uses tap water from local municipal water supplies, filters it using the process of reverse osmosis and adds trace amounts of minerals, including Magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt), Potassium chloride (a sodium-free substitute for table salt), and common salt.

Canada
Dasani was launched in Canada in 2000, a year after launching in the United States. The product was made available in Quebec shortly afterwards, in April 2001. Prior to Dasani launching in Quebec, Evian water bottles were sold on Coca-Cola refrigerator shelves.

There are four common Dasani bottle sizes sold in Canada: 300 mL, 500mL, 591 mL, 1 L, and 1.5 L. Bottles are sold individually and in packs of 6, 12, and 24.

The source of Dasani water in Canada is Brampton, Ontario. Dasani has <35 ppm of total dissolved mineral salts.

In early 2005, two flavored versions of Dasani were introduced to the public: Dasani With Lemon and Dasani With Raspberry. The two beverages are sweetened with sucralose. Dasani with Strawberry has since been introduced to the public.

United Kingdom
Dasani was launched in the UK in January 2004. There were problems from the get-go. Early adverts referred to Dasani as "bottled spunk" or featured the tagline "can't live without spunk." In the UK, "spunk" is a euphemism for semen.

In March 2004, it became public through an article in The Independent newspaper that the tap water of Sidcup was being treated, bottled and sold under the Dasani brand name in the UK. Although Coca-Cola never implied that the water was being sourced from a spring or other natural source, they marketed it as being especially "pure". Hence, the public revelation of it being simply treated tap water caused a media stir.

The media made mocking parallels with a popular episode of the well-known BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses in which the protagonist Del Boy attempts to pass off tap water as spring water. This scheme fails when the local reservoir becomes polluted (also because of Del) causing the bottled water to glow yellow. The episode is believed to have contributed to the severe negative reaction to Dasani by the press and public. Clips from this episode were shown in news reports and other programmes relating to the Dasani flop.

Two weeks later, UK authorities found a concentration of bromate in the product that could be considered harmful if consumed in large quantities. Dasani was potentially carcinogenic. Coca-Cola recalled half a million bottles and pulled the "Dasani" brand from the UK market on March 19, 2004. Shortly after, plans to introduce the brand on Continental Europe were announced to have been canceled as well. Ironically, bromate was not present in the tap water before Coca-Cola's treatment process. During that process the bromate was produced from the tap water's harmless bromide.

The withdrawal of the product and the resulting PR disaster has been likened to the New Coke fiasco. Dasani did in fact make it to Ireland as it was sold quite freely in every major shop in the east of Ireland.

South America
Dasani was introduced to the Brazilian market in mid-2003, renamed as Aquarius. It was introduced to the Chilean market in 2005, including releases in regular, lemon and tangerine flavors. It was released in Colombia in late 2005 with their three regular flavors. In 2005, Dasani was introduced in the Argentinian market with the flavours peach, lemon, citrus and regular. It was also released as a functional water in Mexico named as Ciel Dasani and it was available in four flavors: lemon-cucumber, papaya-carrot, grapefruit and mandarin-green tea, but it was discontinued in 2006. It was also released in Paraguay, Uruguay and Perú.