Weight Watchers enters flavoured water market

Weight Watchers is to launch a range of flavoured sparkling and still waters in January to cash in on consumers who will be attempting to lose weight at the start of the year.

Each 500ml bottle will come with a simple shrink-wrapped sleeve featuring a picture of the fruit its contents are flavoured with. The still range will come in cranberry, mandarin and lemon, and raspberry flavours, while the sparkling range variants are grapefruit and lime, mixed berry, and peach.

The drinks, which will retail at 85p each, are described by one retail source as “of a similar quality to Marks & Spencer products”.

Another retailer says: “I can’t see the Weight Watchers drinks doing particularly well. It is branded fruit-flavoured water in a category that’s already full of healthy, good-for-you products. It would be like coming up with Weight Watchers lettuce, what’s the point?”

In March, Weight Watchers hired JWT to handle its &£7m UK advertising business. The agency’s brief is to create ads for the company’s branded meals range and be responsible for attracting new members to its diet clubs.

The following month Weight Watchers launched a range of chocolate-covered ice-cream desserts on sticks for the convenience market.