Leaked Christmas speech of King Philip goes viral

Brussels, December 21, 2022 – Against all expectations, the monarch's annual Christmas speech focuses primarily on one positive development of the past year: one million unnecessary disposable packages were avoided. At least, that's what the sustainable startup Dripl wants us to believe with a sometimes gruesomely realistic deepfake video of King Philippe, which has been viewed almost 100,000 times on social media in no time.  

Dripl is a driven Brussels startup with a mission: making plastic-free drinking easy in businesses with its packaging-free vending machine. Since its launch in 2019, the company has installed over 140 of its vending machines in businesses across Belgium and the Netherlands. All told, this has already resulted in the dispensing of over 1 million packaging-free drinks from Dripl's taps. This means more than 13,000 PMD bags, 200,000 liters of unnecessary water transport, and 29 tons of sugar.  

King Philippe in the breach

Dripl hopes that King Philippe's virtual encouragement will inspire even more people to use less disposable packaging. "We are certainly proud of this milestone and are therefore pleased that His Majesty appreciates our achievement," says Colin Deblonde, CEO and co-founder of Dripl, with a wink. "But our mission is only just beginning. By the end of 2023, we also want to be active in Germany, and our goal is to eliminate 3 million disposable packages."

Crazy or genius?

"As a startup, you sometimes have to push the boundaries or get creative to be heard," says Deblonde. "Unfortunately, we don't have the budgets that the Coca-Cola or Pepsico companies of this world can spend on advertising campaigns. That can sometimes be an advantage, because it forces you to approach things in a non-traditional way."

Dripl believes that soon we'll all be carrying around a reusable water bottle that we can fill anywhere with delicious drinks. Currently, the focus is on the corporate world, but in the long run, the sky's the limit. "Isn't it strange that you can fill your Dopper with water anywhere, but as soon as you want something refreshing, you have to immediately resort to disposable solutions?"    

Future purveyor to the Royal Household

"I also think of all those forward-thinking business leaders who chose to replace their drink dispensers with a Dripl, as we did at Court," the mock speech echoes. "We would love to become Court suppliers," Deblonde said. "We have meanwhile submitted our application to the Lord Intendant of the King's Civil List and sincerely hope that the King, too, will do his bit for a packaging-free world."