Jonesing for Soda

The fact is, you don't need it! And as soon as you get off the fact that you don't need it you become, in my opinion, you become a better marketer, you get a better understanding of your customer. You're not listening to your customer when you tell them, "You need me." You listen to you customers when you say, "You really don't need me." Coca-Cola sold 500 million cans of soda yesterday. I think a consumer can find a cold beverage somewhere if they really need to. Let's just get this stuff clear. Clearly, let's call an ace an ace. Nobody's going to lose any sleep, no one's going to get dehydrated. That's a fundamental difference, I believe, between marketers and brand builders. Brand builders realize that brands need to be accepted by the consumer and that it's a privilege and honor for someone to pay $1.70 for a bottle of Jones Soda. I'm very honored by that.

The Rules

I came to that insight pretty early on in the game because when you're selling so many widgets -- here I had a distribution warehouse, where I have 600 different beverages and I realized that all I'm doing is moving one to the other and nobody really gives a rat's ass. But I wasn't inundated with the culture of a big company. I didn't have the three or four years of big-time corporation. And by not going to business school -- and I wish I had gone to biz school in order to learn the game -- but I'm so glad I didn't learn to believe in the rules. That's a key component of what I do: I'm not convinced that I don't have to play by anybody's rules. We'll, that's not true. We have three. A. The world doesn't need another soda. B. We don't believe people need our soda. C. We can't play by anybody's rules. If we adhere to those three things, then we're going to create an emotional connection with our consumers, we're going to be bigger than a lot of companies think we can get because we're doing the right thing, and we're going to have a lot of fun doing it.

Passionate Brands

Great brands are built because people are passionate about them. The very first case of Jones Soda went to the founder of Nike, Phil Knight. He got the first case of Jones Soda. I don't know if he ever saw it. But he sent a letter -- I don't know if he signed it or if his secretary signed it. I don't care; it's framed in the boardroom. I just really like what he was doing. One of the things about Jones Soda, I always viewed Jones as an accessory. So when we looked at companies to emulate, we never looked at beverage companies. It doesn't make any sense. If I'm trying to be a leader in a category, why look at the big guys because I'm just going to try and follow what they're doing. So the approach has always been to say I don't care what anybody does in the beverage industry. I really don't. They're going to do what they're going to do, so who gives a rat's ass. We've got to do what we've got to do. You have to know what they're doing, but you don't have to follow what they're doing.

If you don't like Jones Soda, if you're not into it, I don't give a rat's ass. I'm not going to change my formula to please you. That's a very profound statement because if you talk to companies today, they say the customer's always right. Well, no. Forget that. The customer's not always right. If you are always trying to cater to all of the customers you have, you have no soul. You have to define yourself.

You're always going to piss people off. We had people pissed off that we had a salt and pepper shaker on our label, because they said it was promoting "racial commingling." You are an idiot. It's a salt and pepper shaker. There was a cue ball, and that was promoting cocaine. There was a Zippo lighter and that was promoting "smoking and weed." The point is, fine, have a nice day. But I'm not going to pull those off. Now do I have a kid being beaten? No. I had a salt and pepper shaker.

A great brand is going to evoke passion. You're going to love it or hate it. And I'm good with that. I'm good with people loving us. And I'm good with people hating us.

On Health and Humor

My daughter drinks one Jones a week. And I'm good with that. We don't sell two liters. It's a treat. And everybody wigs out on it, saying it causes obesity. It's the fact that you drink 44 fluid ounces of this stuff. 10 years ago the average size of a soda was 12 ounces. Now, the average size is 43 ounces. Well, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the math, you morons. So we sell in 12-ounce. That's it. Have a nice soda. If you're going to drink a gallon of soda, you better figure out that that's a lot of sugar. The reality is that Jones can be a powerful brand. We can be a powerful brand by -- we're selling 12-packs in Target now. That's going to show me how we stack up against Coke and Pepsi. And so far, we're doing better than they thought we would do. And we're doing better than I thought we would do. And the reality is that we haven't advertised it. Nobody knows about it. But then, you're going to see our turkey and gravy holiday pack. That stuff is outrageous. No one's going to come up with mashed potato flavor, green bean, and fried onions. Fruitcake, which is disgusting, and cranberry sauce.