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Nalgene: Message in a BottleIt's not so unusual for a product designed for one audience to get adopted by another one. Think of gentlemanly Burberry becoming a hip-hop fashion staple, Viking ranges meant for restaurants crossing over into domestic use or Jeeps and Hummers driving straight from their origins on rugged battlefields into every neatly paved suburb of America. But it is a bit unusual for this to happen twice. The official story of the Nalgene Outdoor bottle began more than 50 years ago when a Rochester chemist created a line of polyethylene lab equipment. It was good, solid stuff. Then some outdoorsy scientists and eventually even Boy Scouts started using some of the bottles to tote water and other things on hikes and camping trips. And thus the first leap: selling bottles to a whole new customer base.
It is only more recently that the Nalgene bottle has made a second journey -- from mountain trails to college campuses. It's not totally clear how the student set picked up on Nalgene, but the company has now added college bookstores to its distribution network. Along the way, its bottles have become, for some at least, close to a fashion accessory, maybe even a totem of status. Throw in the gym-and-fitness crowd, and it all adds up to sales of well over a million of Nalgene's flagship 32-ounce wide-mouth bottles alone. Not bad for the indire
more: www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/magazi... (291)
November 23, 2004 | Viewed 20,899 time(s)
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