Selling water: Coke, Pepsi look to make water rain money

[...] running their first Super Bowl ads were Fiji and Bai Brands, which sell "enhanced waters" made with fruit juice and stevia sweetener.

Michael Simon, Bai's chief marketing officer, says its drinks "give people that healthy profile they're looking for, but now they no longer have to sacrifice on taste with the neutrality of water."

Bottled water has been gaining ground for years, and overtook soda as the No. 1 drink in the U.S. by sales volume last year, industry tracker Beverage Marketing Corp. said.

Companies aren't as interested in the big, economy packs of plain bottled water that have been fueling the growth, says Ali Dibaj, a Bernstein analyst who covers the industry, since those are less profitable than sodas and are a "horrible business to be in."

To help address people's concerns about the environment as well as paying for a variation of what they could get from the faucet, companies like Nestle have been "light weighting" the packaging to use less plastic and keep prices down.

Beverage Digest, another industry tracker, counts flavored sparkling varieties in its water category, as well as Sparkling Ice, which is made with artificial sweeteners.