In his continuing drive to build a career after he retires from track and field, Yohan Blake on Friday launched his brand of water, Revierie Purified Water, at the AC Hotel in Kingston.

The brand will officially hit the market on November 1 with plans already in place to target markets overseas, especially in the Diaspora, the Caribbean and China where the 2011 World 100m champion continues to be a popular figure.

The broader plan is to align the Reviere brand with Jamaican/Caribbean sport, culture and life making it the water of choice for “home, healing, training, the gym, rehearsals, events and everyone’s life essential drink of water.”

Blake and his team have already planned an aggressive marketing strategy to break into the market. They have ready ads for television and social media featuring Blake and the brand’s ambassador, dancehall icon Bounty Killer and one for social media.

The world champion’s image appears on each bottle of water, which his team believes will help to connect the brand with consumers.

Speaking with Sportsmax.TV, Blake said launching his own brand of water is a big deal.

“It is really big for me. It is really going to change the market in the way not just how people see water, but see me on the bottle knowing that through my hard work this water is on the market and me looking to go into a different venture,” he said.

The beloved athlete also drew praise from business partner Stephen Steele of iPrint Digital and Outdoor Advertising, who urged everyone to support Blake in this new venture.

Speaking on behalf of Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Advisor Lenford Salmon lauded the second fastest man for his dive into entrepreneurship and described him as an example for others to follow.

“The minister particularly wanted me to highlight the fact that for a young man, a young athlete, and we at the Ministry of Culture regard sports as physical culture. So we regard it as a part of the culture and in the day of bling where artists, too many of them and our athletes make some money, sometimes it’s not even a whole heap, but when they make some income they don’t plow it back, they go for the bling,” Salmon said.

“They go for fast cars, they party every night, they go for top-shelf liquor,  without looking to see how they’re going to secure their future. And we’ve been watching you and we’re seeing your business ventures, we’ve seen all you have been doing to set an example for athletes and for people, generally, in what we call physical culture and culture and we want to use this opportunity of you starting another business venture and hold you up as that kind of example which we want others to follow.”