A vendor at a Canadian festival used absurdity to make a point about marketing by selling hot dog water for 38 dollars a bottle. Hot Dog Water was for sale at a stand at the Vancouver Car Free Day festival Sunday. Advertised as gluten-free, Keto diet-compatible source of electrolytes, the product’s marketing promised to help the drinker lose weight and increase brain function. And believe it or not, people bought it for real.

Douglas Bevans, creator of Hot Dog Water told Global News, “We’ve created a recipe, having a lot of people put a lot of effort into research and a lot of people with backgrounds in science really creating the best version of Hot Dog Water that we could.” Each bottle had a weiner suspended inside. Bevans eventually revealed the whole thing was a stunt to inspire people to think more critically about health claims in product marketing. He is a performance artist and his product is commentary on what we’re willing to buy in the name of health and wellness.

“Hot Dog Water in its absurdity hopes to encourage critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it can play in our purchasing choices,” reads the small print on bottles of Hot Dog Water. “From the responses, I think people will actually go away and reconsider some of these other 80-dollar bottles of water that will come out that are ‘raw’ or ‘smart waters’ or anything that doesn’t have any substantial scientific backing but just a lot of pretty impressive marketing,” Bevans told Global News.

For those who wonder what the product tastes like, Bevan jokingly said, “if you’re at a yoga class, your perspiration is actually pretty close to the makeup of the Hot Dog Water.” Bevans said the entire process was pretty well thought out. He said that growing up he’d hear stories about people drinking ‘weiner soup’ and those stories stuck with him.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 23, 2018 12:07 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).