The mineral water brand Volvic invites to the “Hydro Games”, where 6 content creators compete against each other on Twitch. However, the campaign is not well received, as the corporation behind it is controversial.
What are the Hydro Games? With the Twitch event of the mineral water producer Volvic, attention is to be drawn to the topic of hydration. For this purpose, teams of 6 streamers will compete against each other in challenges over 3 months.
During the streams, alerts are to be displayed reminding the participants to drink enough. Merchandise, gift subscriptions, and Volvic fan packages await the winning communities. The first challenge “Twitch Feud” runs on March 30 (via Volvic).
Who is participating? A total of 5 Twitch streamers and one female streamer are taking part:
However, criticism of the event is being voiced on Twitter. Fans are disappointed that “their” streamers are participating in something like this.
Twitch streamers like to use their reach to draw attention to important issues:
The business with water
What bothers people? Behind Volvic is the French corporation Danone, which, with brands like Evian and Volvic, is among the largest bottlers of mineral water worldwide – in this market, they compete with the also much-criticized corporation Nestlé.
Because the practice of extracting and selling “free” water at the source is controversial. Critics also fear that water extraction negatively affects the surrounding regions and causes bodies of water to dry up (via euronews).
However, the corporation emphasizes that it is focused on protecting the Volvic source, reducing the extraction volume and water consumption (via Volvic).
The website behindthebrand attests that Danone has made progress in recent years, but with a rating of 4/10, there is still room for improvement, especially in the area of water.
Criticism floods in on Twitter
How does this manifest? Despite these explanations from Volvic, the reactions on Twitter are predominantly negative. Under Volvic’s announcement, it is said, for example, that they are engaging in “greenwashing”: These are PR measures through which corporations want to give themselves a “green”, sustainable appearance without tackling the actual problems (via Twitter).
The participants also do not come away unscathed. Negative comments pile up under their own posts about the challenge: It is a shame that they entered into such a collaboration, as there seems to be a need to better inform themselves about cooperation partners.
Volvic responds to some of the critical voices and reiterates that it only pumps as much water as it is allowed to.
Are there also positive voices? Overall, there are relatively few reactions and they are almost exclusively negative. Only the basic idea can be found somewhat positively by some. A Twitter user writes that it is better to promote water than sugary lemonades and energy drinks (via Twitter).
The topic is particularly spicy since many content creators distanced themselves from the liquid food YFood at the end of February, after the food company Nestlé sought a minority stake. Nestlé has been criticized for years. Fans perhaps wished for a similar stance towards Danone.
