Jones Soda Company has released a limited edition Vegan Thanksgiving flavored soda. The Tofurky and Gravy Soda 6-pack comes with 3 Tofurky and Gravy Sodas and 3 new flavors from their Zlich, zero calorie, line. If you’re the type to try bacon flavored Vodka (Bakon Vodka) this may be the thing for you.

It’s lunchtime, but I’m not eating now. So to fill the void, I’m posting about food. Well, to clarify, I’m not really writing about food, rather I’m writing about drinks that wish they were food.

Yep, you guessed correctly, I’m posting about Jones Soda. I take a certain level of pride with Jones since it’s from where I’m from—Seattle. (Yes, I know all my friends are thinking that everything and everyone is from Seattle, but hey, I can’t help that cool people and companies flock to the Pacific Northwest!)

Well, now that I’m off-track, let’s get back to Jones. Known for their creativity and efforts to reach their audience effectively, Jones is a great example of successful marketing. How? They see the importance of reaching their audience on multiple channels in ways customers are interested in. For example, they’re heavily active on Twitter, and maintain a company blog.

One way they accomplish this connection to their customers is by inviting the general public to submit photos to be the labels of the Jones products. (Don’t believe me? Where else do you think they get their crazy, awkward, funny and ugly labels? My brother took a picture of our cousin water skiing, submitted it to Jones, invited his friends to vote for his picture, and low and behold a few months later the picture was circulated around the country as the label of the Cherry Jones Soda.)

Jones has established their brand so well that the Seattle Seahawks have selected them as the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage vendor. That’s a big account for a relatively small beverage company (compared to the usual Pepsi or Coke vendors). Clearly, the Seahawks have taken the Jones tagline seriously and have “run with the little guy.”

The Jones tactic that intrigues me the most is the creation of their flavors—namely creative holiday flavors. You know, the candy corn or turkey and gravy flavored sodas (I’m only referring to it as “soda” because it is part of their name, but really it should be “pop.”) This year, they have teamed up with Tofurky, the vegan brand of tastes-like-meat-but-is-not-meat products. Yes, Jones is selling Tofurky-flavored soda for their vegan audience. Wow! What a way to partner with another company and get another audience interested in both products. I’ve tried several varieties of Jones Soda, but the only holiday flavor I’ve had is candy corn. (If you like liquid sugar with tons of orange food coloring, be my guest because I didn’t like it. The holiday flavors of Jones Soda are a great option if you’re not big into holiday cooking, or if you still need to find that perfect gift for Uncle [fill in the blank]. As for me, I’m going to stick with my Fufu Berry, thanks.)

But what can B2B marketers learn from Jones Soda? Here are a few ideas:

1. Involve your customers. After all, they are (or at least should be) the reason behind all of your marketing efforts. Find a way to get them interacting with your brand regularly – perhaps a contest, or a regular e-newsletter.
2. Be creative. That doesn’t have to mean formulating odd beverage flavors or product labels, but find that differentiator that will set your business apart from others. Maybe it’s a virtual trade show. Or a unique way of showcasing your product in a direct mail campaign.
3. Do more. Just a brochure and a website isn’t enough anymore. For instance, Jones has a good presence on social media, which helps them connect with their customers. Your company can, too.
4. Think big. Jones fought the big competitors and won a large client by positioning their brand in the right place at the right time with the right message. You’ll never get the big accounts if you aren’t careful to set your brand apart while being consistent with its message.

As I vegetarian, I am definitely accustomed to eating some very gross things. I’ll be the first to admit, tofu could be more delicious. Yes, you can make it well enough to taste good, but for a quick meal? I think not.

Check this out:

Tofurkey Drinks

Now, I love a good Jones Soda. In fact, I love most Jones Soda flavors. But really? Tofurkey and Gravy? I’ll pass. I can’t help but question, does this mock vegetarians in a subtle way?

Wow… lots of things have been going on in just the opening week of the contest. If this is any indication of what’s to come throughout the contest, we’re in for a real treat!

Jones Soda is the latest sponsor to get on board with us in the Photograph your love Photo Contest, and boy were they generous. They’ve added a new level of coolness to this entire event. It turns out we have lots in common with Jones… who would have guessed? They love photography, and that’s super obvious with their approach to their label design. They use their customer’s photos on the labels of their soda cans and bottles! Not only do they love photography, they also love working with Vitamin Angels and they’ve done a number of things to raise awareness and funds for this amazing organization. So when we approached them about being a sponsor in the contest they were super eager to help! The grand prize winner of the contest will not only win a full scholarship to a Jesh de Rox Photo Workshop, the winner’s photo will also be printed on the Jones Soda label for national distribution! It doesn’t stop there, they’re also going to give each finalist a 6-pack of Jones Soda with their winning image printed on the bottle as well! Thanks so much to the kind folks at Jones Soda… and huge thanks to our friends at Vitamin Angels for making that introduction!

The word about our partnership with Vitamin Angels has really started to trickle out and we couldn’t be happier about it. We even received a note from one of the vendors we use to purchase photo supplies from. Derek Hinkle of Diversified Imaging Supply was so moved by the things Vitamin Angels does, he’s decided to match our contribution dollar for dollar. Here’s the story.

Here’s a quick recap of all of the sponsors for this year’s Photograph your love Contest. Jesh de Rox, Jones Soda, Rabobank, Simple Shoes, XShot, Fuji Film, Calumet Photographic, Volcom, Photojojo, Amy Seeley and Low Tide Rising. Don’t delay…. photograph your love!

gabe

coca cola is still better

<via cakehead loves evil>

more than thanksgiving flavors now!

but i would encourage a pumpkin variety <via dieline>

Legend has it that when Coca Cola first came out a century back, it contained a substance (Cocaine) which made it highly addictive!  While the addiction part may not be entirely substantiated, I have met a fair number of people who ‘can’t live’ without a Coke (or Pepsi).

Having grown up in the South, I have had a few “Co’ Cola’s”, as we call them, and while I love their taste, they simply can’t compare to the “new” flavors that have emerged recently of soda with Cane Sugar instead of Corn Syrup.  Pepsi has tried it, Coke makes a version in Mexico of this, however, my all time favorite is Jones Soda.

There are several dozen flavors (check out some of the uber-bright ones in the picture), but the purest and most addictive of  them all is their Cola flavor.

Aha! Therein lies the rub (or whatever Shakespearean quote that I meant to say).

It turns out that while stores stock plenty of Fufu Berry and Green Apple, finding Cola flavor is a veritable search for the Holy Grail.

I have contacted the company, hoping that they could point me towards a store in my area that carries it.  What I got in reply was a canned answer that directed me to, “check with my local store for all my favorite Jones soda flavors”.

Um….they don’t carry my favorite flavor.  That’s why I am contacting you!

So, I have tried again. I have contacted Jones on their website and via Twitter @jonessodaco, hopefully someone in their system can figure out where they stock it and send me a crate or two.

I’m off to try their Facebook site, wish me luck, and thanks for reading!

Brandon

So I’ll say it:  The Chargers cannot, cannot, cannot LOSE today!!!  Of course, it’s their Bye week along with Bears, Packers, Saints; all teams looking solid.  Which is more than I can say for my ailing, heart attack kid Chargers.  but this week has indeed some ponderous match-ups and some games that I’ll be sorry to miss not having re-upped my NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV.  Here’s what’s on tap, with my picks:

• Ravens over Bengals – Sorry, Cincy, but hard to pick against tough Ravens at home.
• Bills over Cleveland
• Carolina over Washington – In Crazy Pick #1, out of sheer league parity, I’m going with Carolina in a squeaker.
• Steelers over Lions – Um, yeah. 
• KC over Dallas – Crazy Pick #2.  Arrowhead stadium.  I look over my picks and for some reason, I’m going AFC West all…oh, Oakland…most of the way.
• Giants over Oakland – Eli or no, the Giants are solid.
• Eagles over Bucs – If McNabb can play solid and safe in his first week back, Eagles should prevail.
• Vikings over St Louis – It’s hard to imagine with the Favre fever in Minnesota now that the lowly Rams (distractions noted below) will be much effort.  Blowout expected. 
• Atlanta over San Fran – Frankly, hardest pick of the week.  Could go either way.  Love (and fear) what Singletary has brought to the 49ers.
• Cardinals over Texans – Warner needs protection in this one, fo sho.
• Denver over New England – Crazy Pick #3.  Fact 1: Denver is playing within themselves.  Fact 2: New England is playing like a safe team, not a championship team.  Fact 3:  Mile High.  Mile High, I think, wins.
• Seattle over Jacksonville – Crazy Pick #4.  This one is emotional fo sho.  I’m not a huge fan of Hasslebeck’s skills but he is the team leader.  Scheduled to be back this game and playing at home, I’m hoping his presence and the ever presence of Seattle’s 12th Man in one of the loudest outdoor stadiums in the NFL.  Let the yellow flags fly and start handing out the Jones sodas*!
• Colts over Titans – more of the same from the Colts.

Monday nite:  Jets over Wildcat Miami.  Sanchez bounces back, plays sharp, 27 – 7.

So about the Limbaugh rumors in St Louis, just a quick few words:  I’ll let St Louis decide.  Money talks and the NFL is no stranger to big mouthed owners (someone ready Jerry Jones for his close-up).  But I’m not sure that’s what Georgia Frontiere had in mind when she brought the Rams back to her home and installed nice guy Dick Vermeil to coach the team to a Super Bowl behind an arena football elder quarterback in Kurt Warner. 

*Anyone who’s gone to a Seahawks game at Qwest Field knows that Jones Soda is the official drink of the stadium and when/if the opposing team gets 3 or more false start penalities due to crowd noise, everyone with a ticket gets a free Jones soda.  To comply with FCC regulations, I must tell you that I got bumpkiss from both Jones soda and the Seahawks for mentioning this today in my blog.

We are used to the world of internet communication as an ephemeral, “one-time” communication. Send your email or IM communication and it disappears, without a sound, into the ether. But at least some of those communications are permanently cached and indexed. We’re seeing this today in product placement and promotion, and in the future will likely see similar behavior with tweets, statuses, and emails. The internet is an Elephant with a long memory.

Take the 2006 Jones Soda Thanksgiving Pack as an example that may shed some light on our future consumption of personal communication. Jones creates a limited-edition soda pack every year to drive buzz. In the olden (pre-Internet, 20th century) days, marketers would create limited edition packages that most people might forget. The 6 pack of Thanksgiving Meal flavored sodas was one of a string of innovative and attention-getting soda packs from Jones that emphasized the Jones brand: irreverent, sugared (instead of corn-syrup sweetened, and fun). This was supposed to be a limited-time phenomenon. But almost three years later, the Jones Soda photograph referenced above and a blog post I made in early 2009 are some of my most widely hit posts/photos.

What’s the message to be gained? The internet is an Elephant with a cyclical memory. Search engines and site such as Flickr and Facebook allow consumers to show their support for limited editions, ask for cancelled products to be returned, and even (in the extreme case) campaign for fake products to be made real (think of “Email n’ Walk”, the iPhone app that started out as an April Fool’s joke. The web archive allows you to see cached versions of prior web sites and see the web as it was a few days, months, or years ago. Yet this “memory” or “nostalgia” is not easy to parse. Who published it? What was the original intent? These questions become less relevant when the content is separated from the original marketing campaign.

So what can we learn from the persistence of the Jones Soda Thanksgiving promotion? One-time promotions for products Jones are easy to find: the Internet makes it possible to search among user-generated content and official information. We should apply the same principles to the way that we find information about people and companies with whom we communicate. The ability to verify the communication as “authentic” and to build critical thinking abilities will be crucial in the future for users to validate these communications, improve the ability of marketers to get their message out in the blogosphere/real-time search world, and for consumers to find the products and services they want (not just the ones they find). What does that mean for the Internet Elephant? It will continue to remember, so ensure that the communications you’re placing out there in the world are ones you want it to share days, months, and years from now.

Jones soda is making official D&D sodas.

Sodas

• Potion of Healing
• Sneak Attack
• Bigby’s Crushing Thirst Destroyer
• Dwarven Draught
• Eldritch Blast
• Illithid Brain Juice

The sodas also come with an exclusive Drow Assassin figurine while supplies last!

Life has turned into a busy mess, but I guess that’s the nature of doing three studio courses in one semester. It doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon either!

I have a lot of stuff to hit in this post, so let’s get right to it, shall we:

- Inglorious Basterds was glorious. We discuss the film at length in the next episode of Cine-Rama (coming very soon) with special guest Eric Martin of The Trip, Comics Playground, and DC Noise. I think he’s on about 96 other podcasts too . . .

- I’ve been eating a lot of Chinese food lately. Like a lot, a lot. It’s ridiculous. And I still don’t get tired of it. Do I have a problem?

- A new super computer is set to appear as a guest on Jeopardy. http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-08/supercomputer-takes-jeopardy I just hope they remembered to program it to answer in the form of a question.

- Meet the coolest new dinosaur discovered in decades: RaptorRex! http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/09/17/tiny.t-rex.dinosaur.discovered/index.html Sure, he has powerful legs, razor-sharp teeth, and is nine feet tall, but the remains were discovered in China . . . and as we learned above, I would clearly be able to devour him before he got me.

- Jones Soda (delicious, and sadly hard to find most places) is going to be marketing a series of limited edition Dungeons and Dragons themed flavors. The flavors are set to be: Potion of Healing, Sneak Attack, Eldritch Blast, Dwarven Draught, Illithid Brain Juice (my favorite name), and Bigby’s Crushing Thirst Quencher. What? No magic missile?

And now back to making life more animated . . . .

Dear Peapod-

It has recently come to my attention that you do not carry Dungeons and Dragons-themed Jones soda.

What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Seriously, the cross-section of anti-HFCS hippies/supertasters/wannabe supertasters and RPGers/MMORPGers/LARPers/half-elf rangers constitutes an enormous part of the soda-drinking demographic.

Please remedy this situation or else expect a nasty letter from yours truly.

Yours truly,
-Maitland

And I give you our table number stands… Now I just have to scrounge up 35 twist cap soda bottles over the next 9 months… looks like I will be regularly consuming some izze

I will then be making my own variation of these labels using the table number photos I have already picked out…

{source}

Now we just have to come up w/ the soda company name… They will of course all be “lemonade” flavor

What do you think of “Mismikado Bottling” & “Coolhand Sodas”? Or should we just go with the last name route?

I can not believe that Fall is coming so soon. Next Tuesday is September the first and the death rattle of summer has already begun here in the Northwest. Before I know it all the trees will be bare and my flops will be flipped for boots. But we ain’t there yet. I am going to make a promise this year. I am going to enjoy this Autumn and embrace the coming holidays, unlike my last couple of years. This time I am really going to do it right because I love this season. You know it’s magic when it’s magical and that my friends, is a statement to live by.

The List

1. Annual Fall beer review (haven’t decided which one yet. Suggestions?)
2. Probably a puppetry art blog with more candy
3. Going to bake something. (send recipies)
4. Octoberfest review in Levenworth, WA
5. The half Marathon in Levenworth (See Macabre Fitness for that one)
6. Tribute to Halloween 3
7. VHS Horror Night (brought to you by the local VHS rental store)
8. Annual carving of something
9. Jones Soda review
10. Memories of Holiday-past blog (for sure)

I always cheat my way out. Corn should have had thorns.

 I will be adding to this list but I think I can at least come through on these. I have a new and much larger place with a neat little office to work from so my creativity has no excuse to go tits-up like I have been doing these past months. I find writing has been all about atmosphere as of late and now that I can look at my Tom Atkin’s picture for creative inspiration, I know that good things are to come.

I have finally finished my “Where did You Go?” post but before I post I want to check some conflicting facts. A while ago I recieved an email from a star (?) with a correction. I am not sure if it is legit but regardless, I want to be truthful and not hurt anyones feelings.

(Something Random)

 Jones Soda ™

(SFX: PEOPLE TALKING ALL AT ONCE.)

ANNOUNCER: It’s hard being a genius, isn’t it? Your mind never just shuts up. It’s always this and that and the first 32 numbers of Pi. And you’d do just about anything to have a moment of silence, wouldn’t you? You’d even watch a kid show in some futile hope? Hope that the simplisty will overwhelm your mind, and shut-it-up! Only you start analyzing the bright colors and rapid movement and correlate it with childhood ADD. You just CAN’T find silence anywhere!

Well, genius, drink a Jones soda ™  and listen to the world shut up.

(SFX: SODA CAN OPENS. COMPLETE SILENCE.)

ANNOUNCER: The power of being delicious.

http://www.jonessoda.com/files/magic-thegathering-planeswalker-jones.php

I want to say it’s completely retarded, but Bungie did it first.

Oh wait, it was retarded then too. Awesome!

CHUGGIN’ AND CHARGIN’ THIS SHIT!

The company Jones Soda will be hosting FREE SODA FRIDAY on July 10th, 2009 at their headquarters. If you’re thirsty and on the go, a fan of Jones Soda or just want to be a part of this grand event, head on down to their headquarters in the South Lake Union Neighborhood for some free drank from 8 AM – 5 PM.

234 Ninth Ave. N in Seattle

Not only do you get a free soda, everyone that comes by will be entered into a drawing for a chance at winning 4 seats in the Jones Soda Suite during a Seattle Sounders game at Qwest Field on August 29th.

For more info click here to go to their official site.