Beverage Industry Tries to Bottle the Opposition

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With increasing criticism that "bottled water has misleading labels and is of inferior quality to municipal water systems," and the governments of San Francisco and Salt Lake City prohibiting city agencies from buying bottled water, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the American Beverage Association (ABA) have ramped up their PR. The two industry groups "have been working together on heavy media outreach, blog monitoring, SMTs" -- satellite media tours, sponsored canned TV interviews -- "and TV, newspaper, and radio interviews," reports PR Week. IBWA president Joe Doss said that "an integral part of the communications effort was the monitoring of blogs and comments from other groups." IBWA "is also reaching out to all mayors and state government-related groups 'that might be interested in this issue,'" added Doss. ABA's "government affairs team is also doing a lot of one-on-one meetings with government officials." Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group with a "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign, said it's trying to raise awareness of "the importance of our public water systems."