Forgive us if this comes across as a little “advertisey”, but believe me this is a sincere story. Recently we’ve been sponsored by glacéau vitaminwater for the Heavy Chef Sessions we run each month. So, intrigued by this relatively new brand that’s now EVERYWHERE, I scratched below the surface for some tasty tidbits. A while back, Thurlow from thewinwingroup related to me the story of a guy called J. Darius Bikoff, who started a small bottled water company in 1996 after eating a vitamin C wafer on the way to a yoga class.

Amidst serious personal difficulties, Bikoff managed to get the company up and running, and within 5 years the company was the company’s drinks were sold in over 4,000 retail stores in the New York area.

In 2007, the company was sold to The Coca-Cola Company for $4.1 billion. (Shewwwww….!) The brand is already iconic in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, New Zealand and Mexico amongst tastemakers, trendsetters, makers and shakers, and people like you and me with a thirst for their own well being. open up a glossy international lifestyle mag’ and you’ll see all the beautiful people air-kissing one another at shnazy events, glacéau vitaminwater in hand.

Not bad for a self-proclaimed health nut who had no previous experience in the beverage industry. It’s a great entrepreneurial inspiration story. The product is good, but backed up by some serious marketing nous that we can all learn from. We’ve seen at our marketing events and digital marketing courses, as well as in our studio amongst grumpy programmers and lively creatives, that the drink is a kickass combination of feel-good and tasty-goodness. People love the stuff.

Anyway, as a growing brand ourselves, The Heavy Chef Project is only to proud to have this global success story. Thanks to Clellind and the team at glaceau for showing faith in us.

Fred is the CEO of digital marketing agency World Wide Creative. Fred co-founded The Heavy Chef Project, as well as Ideate, a forum for African entrepreneurs. Fred focuses on online brand building, marketing strategy and loud Hawaiian shirts. Fred is famous for his sartorial excellence, long diatribes about music and fanatical attention to detail when making pizza. Follow Fred on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Fred_Roed