These days fitness is a major topic of conversation. Everyone wants that toned summer body, but few are willing to put in the actual work for it. They often look for quicker and easier fixes. Supplements, crash diets, miracle products, anything that promises results is often seen making waves in the market. Few bother to check the authenticity of said remedies and this most often than not results in them getting duped, not to mention harmful side effects in some cases.
Douglas Bevans is the CEO of one such company with a revolutionary product.
Hot Dog Water is a company that offers a new weight loss and rejuvenation miracle water for a price of approximately ₹2000 per bottle.
And what is this miracle water? The water left from cooking hot dog sausages. Yup, as simple as that.
Recently at the Car-Free Day Festival in Vancouver, Canada, Douglas set up his stall with the revolutionary ‘hot dog water’. Oh, and he was dressed like one too:
He wasn’t alone either. He had an entire team of ‘highly specialized Hot Dog Water scientists’ to help him out:
They also had a detailed information board near their stall, for anyone interested in knowing more about their product.
Hot Dog Water claims to help you lose weight, increase your brain functionality, look younger, increase vitality, is keto compatible, contains sodium and is a good source of electrolytes.
Speaking to Global News, Douglas says:
“We’ve created a recipe, having a lot of people put a lot of effort into research and a lot of people with backgrounds in science really creating the best version of Hot Dog Water that we could.”
Impressive right? Many at the event thought so too. In fact, by the end of the day, Douglas and team had sold almost 60 litres of their product.
Pretty good for a company that’s existed barely a week, isn’t it?
Well, it’s actually a lot more impressive since the entire thing was a gimmick. The fine print at the very bottom of the signboard reads:
“Hot Dog Water in its absurdity hopes to encourage critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it can play in our purchasing choices.”
Bevans, who is apparently a tour operator by trade and also an artist, says he staged the whole ploy as a commentary on what he calls the ‘snake oil salesmen’ of health marketing.
Douglas says:
“It’s really sort of a commentary on product marketing and especially sort of health-quackery product marketing.
From the responses, I think people will actually go away and reconsider some of these other $80 bottles of water that will come out that are ‘raw’ or ‘smart waters,’ or anything that doesn’t have any substantial scientific backing but just a lot of pretty impressive marketing.”
The stunt was met with mixed reactions from the crowd as only a few got the joke, while many fell for it and some others were just plain confused:
https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1008478468672184321
Though this incident initially made me laugh, it quickly became a wakeup call to be more mindful of any product that I buy. With the advent of impressive marketing strategies, we’re all guilty of buying things without checking their authenticity or effectiveness. Time to snap out of our comfortable bubbles and be more responsible with our purchases.