I probably haven’t looked at a website from any of the alkaline water companies for a year or two until today. Watching a slow painful death isn’t fun. What prompted me to take a look today you ask?
I wrote an article about a month ago about the emergence of the molecular hydrogen gas “H2” story. Since then, I have received a number of messages from readers asking me various questions about the article. Yesterday, a reader informed me that one of the alkaline water ionizer companies was claiming that they were selling H2 water ionizers. My first thought was “this sounds like good news”. As I started reading, I realized that the company has simply dusted off an old abandoned technology (that didn’t work very well in the first place, hence the mothballing of the idea) designed to reduce scaling on the plates in their water cells. Of course, the company attached a “new and improved” label on the machines as part of the marketing facelift.
Now that we have learned that alkaline water ionizers always derived their health benefits from molecular hydrogen, it made sense to me that the alkaline water companies would hitch their wagons to the hydrogen story. After all, it’s easier to morph your story from alkaline to hydrogen than come out and announce: “sorry folks, the scientists and doctors were right all along about our psuedo-scientific mumbo jumbo”.
No matter what lipstick you put on pig, it is still a pig. Alkaline water ionizers still use the same old multi-plate water cells designed to produce alkaline water, with acid water being the waste byproduct. The new hydrogen machines that are about to hit the market utilize a totally different technology which has been used for years in high end commercial applications. The new technology consistently produces therapeutic levels of H2 across virtually all source water conditions without having to be cleaned, which alkaline water ionizers simply can’t match. If you want to learn the about the differences between alkaline water ionizers and hydrogen machines, check out:
h2healthyliving.com/the-science-behind-hydrogen-infusion-machines-and-alkaline-water-ionizers/
A Sad Trip Down Memory LANE:
As I was poking around the Alkaviva website, I clicked on the “BE A DEALER” link. I wish I hadn’t. The tab offered me the choice of looking at a “Dealer Information Sheet” or watching their “USA DEALER PROGRAM VIDEO”. Being naturally lazy, I chose the video which is posted on Vimeo, thereby putting the video in the public domain. What I witnessed in the 3 minute and 43 second video made me feel sick to my stomach. Why you ask?
The video starts with the owner of a once prominent alkaline water ionizer company saying: “out with the old” and then he proceeds to smash an alkaline water ionizer to bits with a sledge hammer and then he says: “and in with the new”. The guy obviously thinks he is being funny, but how funny will it be to his previous customers who have spent thousands of dollars on one his alkaline water machines. I would be pretty upset that the guy thinks so little of the machine that I purchased that he would crush it with a sledge hammer.
It can’t get any worse right? Sorry, but it does. Just before the one minute mark of the video, we get to see how their compensation plan works. It turns out that the sellers get paid up to a 50% commission AND “we pay you overrides two levels deep….but wait, there’s more“. The guy seems to take pleasure poking fun at his witty salespitch, but how funny is those who are spending $3,000?
I didn’t see any hint of concern in the video for delivering value to customers. My takeaway from the video is that the company is trying to attract old dealers back into the fold by offering huge profit margins and incentives with an old product that has been tweaked and re-branded with a hydrogen twist.
When are the alkaline water ionizer companies going to learn to focus on the needs of their customers instead of appealing to the greed of sales people?
Check out the vimeo below if you want to laugh for all the wrong reasons: