The 'business card of the future'

It's Water … By George! puts advertising labels on water bottles

MOSES LAKE — Actually, there are no employees named George at It's Water … By George!

The business, working from its new location at 2237 Main St., is operated by Vick Silva, president, and her husband of nearly 20 years, John.

The Silvas, who came to the Moses Lake area in 1991, incorporated in May 2005 after investigating their target market for 16 months.

The business buys plastic bottles of water, and puts on special labels that can advertise a particular business, political candidate or affiliation, or even events, birth announcements, grand openings, anniversaries or weddings, to name a few. They are also exploring the possibility of putting their bottles in schools, as potential fund-raisers or even commemorative memorabilia.

"It's a form of advertising for local companies," Vick said. "It seems to be doing very well over on the west side, and it's pretty much a novelty on this side."

"This is the new business card of the future," John said.

The couple got the idea while drinking bottled water.

"We were sitting around and said, 'Well, maybe we could market this, and other people could have their faces on the bottle of water,'" Vick recalled.

The company has had some customers who believe they can just purchase water from It's Water … By George!

"It's buying advertising, buying a little gift for your clients or buying a thank you," Vick said.

The water comes from a company with the legal right to sell water off a glacier on Mount Rainier, John said. Another company bottles the water for It's Water … which in turn supplies the labeling.

"People either get it, or they don't," Vick said of the community's reaction to the business. "The people who don't get it are the ones that need to know we're not selling water, we're selling advertisements."

For the moment, John and Vick are operating the company, although Vick said that they are going to begin to look for energetic salespeople.

"We'd been doing it out of my dining room, and it just got to the point where I didn't have any place to store all of this," Vick explained. "As the orders started coming in, we said, 'Wow, we've got to have a place to put this.'"

The company ultimately decided to open a business location in Moses Lake, after eying spots in Mattawa and in George, the original reason for part of the company name.

"The inflection has to be right," Vick explained. "It's 'by George,' as in, 'by golly.'"