Cheap and Mundane to Magical: An Advertiser's Wet Dream?

Joel Snape explores the lucrative world of electrolyte supplements (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/sep/30/the-electrolytes-boom-a-wonder-supplement-or-an-unnecessary-expense). Electrolytes are charged components of 'salts', dissolved in water. They are essential components of all living organisms. Some have very specific roles, such as producing nerve impulses. Snape notes that many people can now be persuaded to buy electrolyte supplements in bottles; sachets and powders. Sales, for example, of 'flavoured and functional water', are currently around $50bn a year (and set to double shortly). That type of water doesn't actually hydrate (restore the water balance) any more effectively than tap water. The vast majority of people get all the electrolytes they need, from a normal diet. If such folk add supplements, the excess is removed in the urine. The only healthy people, who would ever need electrolyte supplements are participants in Ironman triathlons or obsessive 'gym bunnies'. Sick folk, with diarrhoea (such as someone with a cholera infection), will also benefit from electrolyte supplementation. From an advertiser's viewpoint, electrolyte supplements have two huge benefits. Firstly, water and the provided salts (such as sodium chloride) are very cheap. Secondly, people seem to be easily convinced that taking an expensive supplement, confers on them some of the attributes of elite sportsmen/women. Cholera victims are rarely mentioned by salesfolk, as they don't have the same cachet. As a bonus, all the 'medical' claims about the benefits of particular electrolytes, are broadly true. It's just not the case you generally need a supplement to get them.