This ad came out of a magazine titled “Guitar Aficionado.”   Water harvested from Mount Rainier.  Genuine Glacial Milk.    In 2008 they state that they “harvested” 22,000 cases (at $100 per case = $2.2 million.)   Twelve 20 ounce bottles per case at $96 per case is about 40 cents per ounce of Glacial Milk.   To compare,  a 1 Liter of bottle water is about $1 or 2.9 cents per ounce.    22,000 cases containing twelve 20 ounce bottles is 41,250 gallons (eight or nine 5,000 gallon tanker trucks).

From this discussion, Bottle Water Economics, the cost of goods on a bottle of water is about $0.20.  Not sure if these Water Milk sellers are using glass or plastic bottles (Does Glacial Milk taste better in glass?  The ad dose not mention the bottle).  A guess at their packaging cost per case (bottles, caps, labels and box): $2 to $3.  Let’s say the cost of goods per case is $6.

Their biggest expense has to be the marketing.   From their tag line, For those who appreciate one of a kind…., they probably spent their marketing dollars on; 1. A targeted mailing list of 100K people in high income brackets. 2. Ads in glossy pubs.  They probably have an ad deal with the suite of Aficionado titles (wonder if they have a cigar in the background in the Cigar Aficionado title).    A rough rule of thumb is that the selling price is about 7 times the cost of goods, 96/7 is about $14.   We can make a guess at the marketing cost per case is in the range of $8.

The envelope numbers indicate that they cleared over a million bucks on selling water, cloudy water.

Wonder if Aquafina Pond could sell as well as Glacial Milk? It is unique. Aquafina Pond please!