That’s unfortunate for the German-based company, because if there was ever an industry in which taste is important, it’s, well, the beverage sector.

The Bionade website does include compelling and helpful information regarding the health and wellness side of its four flavors—Elderberry, Lychee, Herbs, and Ginger-Orange—but that information should be organized in a better manner. For example, the site says a single bottle of Bionade satisfies half of one’s daily requirement of calcium and magnesium. It also contains less sugar and fewer calories than traditional soft drinks. These are useful facts; however, the trouble is these attributes are buried halfway down the side menu on the left of the welcome page. The statistics have a good chance of being overlooked by visitors who don't have the time or inclination to wade through heavy reading.

Furthermore, the site spends too much time educating readers about how it tweaks its unique brewing process to NOT produce beer, rather than marketing the positive attributes of its brand and taste. That the site has a distinct lack of marketing is no surprise to Robert Warren, director of the Asper Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba. He says German companies tend to focus their attention on the science and engineering of a product. “In North America, you have to go with more of a marketing-oriented piece and really stress to customers why they want this particular product, not the patented process,” he says.

The site also lists nine awards won by Bionade over the last three years at various competitions. While it’s one thing to list the gold medal won by its Elderberry, Lychee and Ginger-Orange recipes at the International DLG Quality Awards, or even the “very good” rating earned by Elderberry at Okotest in 2006, it’s quite another to cite the two stars it received for Lychee and Ginger-Orange at the International Taste Awards in 2006 or the one star-rating at the same awards for Elderberry and Herbs.

Warren says taste should be a focal point of Bionade.com. It should at least tell an interesting story about the company, the founders or the origin of the product. It doesn’t even have to be real, just a good yarn, he adds. “That gives me an attachment to the product. People buy on attachment, something they can relate to,” he says. “This site says, ‘look at us, we’re hitting all these great organic green ideas so you want to buy us.’ The broad based market won’t buy on that.”

Bionade made headlines with its recent launch in the US, as market watchers wondered if it could match its European success on the other side of the Atlantic, where, in 2005, Bionade sold 20 million bottles. This figure grew to 70 million by 2006, and with distribution expanded to Scandinavia, Italy, Switzerland and Spain last year, it was expected to hit the 250-million mark in 2007.

There’s no question there is an opportunity for Bionade in the US, the world’s largest market where the popularity of health drinks is on the rise. Recent studies show juices, fruit, and health drinks accounted for more than 40 percent of the entire soft drink market in 2006, up from 31 percent four years earlier. The global market is worth about US$ 6 billion annually.

Before the company does anything about revamping its website and making it more friendly, particularly to potential consumers, Warren recommends deep-sixing the Bionade name, saying it lacks the zest of same-suffixed beverages such as Gatorade or Powerade.

“It sounds like I’m drinking some sort of medicine. I’d change the name to something snappier that reflects the product more or come up with a story and market that,” he says.