Pump swells its coffers for big summer guzzle

Now that summer has decided to bless us, beverage companies hope sales of bottled water will climb.

Coca-Cola Amatil in particular is pouring more than $2 million into a new advertising campaign for its Pump brand.

Megan Danize, senior brand manager for Coca-Cola Amatil, said the ad, which will debut on screens on Waitangi Day, would be young and funky.

She said Pump was the category leader in bottled water with a 23 per cent share of the total bottled water market, and that the company was gearing up to continue building the market.

"Pump's market share continues to grow at a rate of 20.4 per cent per annum, outperforming overall annual growth of the total category which currently sits at 15.5 per cent," Danize said.

In a move that has almost doubled last year's media spend, Coca-Cola Amatil will unveil the media campaign next month in a range of television and radio ads, bus backs, adshels and street posters.

Unwilling to give too much away, Danize said the campaign focused on "building Pump's personality and encourages people to seek fun in everyday things [and] challenge their perception of the world".

The TV commercials could mark the possible beginnings of acting careers for some Coca-Cola Amatil staff who won the chance to appear in the ads through an internal company competition.