On the Drop Store’s website, pizza comes in pill form for $163. A bag of rice contains just 5 grains but costs $89. And a 15-milliliter bottle of “pure” water (about 1 tablespoon) will run you $198. If that’s not enough to quench your thirst, there’s also a 20-ounce bottle of “regular” water—but it’s still $199. And it’s brown.
These products aren’t real. And yet they portray a future in which our water crisis worsens and water is a rare commodity. They also serve as a reminder that for billions of people around the world, water scarcity or access to clean water is already a pressing issue.
The Drop Store is an initiative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, created by the ad agency Publicis Groupe to show how the worsening water crisis could affect everyone’s lives.
The water crisis manifests in a few ways: too much water, too little water, or water that’s too dirty. Both floods and droughts are worsening due to climate change. Flood-related disasters have skyrocketed 134% since 2000. As of 2022, more than 2.3 billion people are dealing with water stress; 2 billion people also don’t have access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people—nearly half of the world’s population—lack safe sanitation.
The global demand for water is expected to increase 55% by 2050, threatening not only drinking water access but also crops and livestock.
That’s where those pizza pills and other products come in. “Since last year’s grain and tomato harvest were lost again, this is the closest you’ll get to the real thing,” the description for the pizza pills—a way to get the taste of pizza without the crops—on the Drop Store’s website reads. Instead of a nutritional label, the page includes scientifically accurate information about how much water it takes to make a traditional margarita pizza (1,259 liters for 725 grams).
“Why is this rice so expensive?” the page for the 5-grain bag reads, before explaining how droughts, floods, and typhoons are already devastating rice farms today.
“We need to understand the water crisis to come; we need to know water is a precious thing,” says Eduardo Marques, chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe.
When considering how to portray the water crisis for everyone in the world across different cultures and backgrounds, Marques thought to connect it to something in everyone’s daily lives: the grocery store.
“When we talk about the wallets of people, the money we spend, or the way that we consume things, that [items] will be out of stock or not available anymore, we found that that’s the way we [reach] average people,” he says. “Let’s see what happens in people’s everyday lives to show the reality that’s happening for a lot of people right now, and the reality that will come really soon if we don’t take action.”
One way to help, Marques says, is to spread the message. “That’s why the focus of this campaign is on social, to make more people aware,” he says. The site also lists organizations working on this issue, from the World Wildlife Fund to the Global Youth Movement for Water.
Along with ridiculously expensive tiny cubes of cheese (it takes 382 gallons of water to make a pound of cheese) and “bug snacks” made of mealworms (meant as a meat replacement, since 1 pound of beef requires nearly 2,000 gallons of water to produce), the Drop Store also features items for a future with too much water: high heels with scuba flippers, for when “fashion meets flash floods,” and a “flouch,” or floatable couch, “so you’ll always stay afloat during floods.”
The Drop Store is an online awareness campaign, though it was also featured in an exhibit at the recent U.N. Water Conference in New York, with the physical products set up, each with an explanation.
“Behind each product is a story of a crisis that’s happening right now or is about to come,” Marques says. TheNetherlands organized the U.N. Water Conference, and the country has become an expert on both flood control and clean water, working to help other countries prevent water scarcity and build infrastructure that can withstand floods.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
