Jonesing for Soda

I can't drink a case of the stuff. No, it's more about having fun. What I really wanted to do with the turkey and gravy, I wanted to say we're not afraid to do it. And now what we're making fun of is the whole carb thing. Now you can have a carb-free turkey and gravy dinner. We're just going to hammer away and make it a big, big parody.

One year on April Fool's Day we sent a press release saying we were acquired by John Deere. That was hilarious. You sold out man! It was a joke, dude. We spelled Deere wrong. It was one of the funniest things we've ever done. We said they wanted their own weed-flavored soda. We came up with that stuff and people went ballistic. We were getting phone calls: "I can't believe you sold out. You sold out to the big guy." Dude, it was a tractor company. It's really very harmless. I mean we live in a society today where there's a lot of stuff going on. We've got wars, we've got terrorism, we've got fuel prices, we've got elections, we've got a very divided country right now. And if Jones can throw some realistic humor, that's harmless.

Patently Personalized

I don't want to be a soda company. I have no desire to say Jones is just a soda company. I have a desire to say Jones is a lifestyle company. Look at what we did with myjonesmusic.com.

In 1997, Ernest von Rosen [developer of Jones' Web site] and I were in Vancouver, he was saying, Dude we're getting a ton of baby photos. I'm like, yeah, we are. He's like how many baby photos do you really want to see on a bottle of Jones soda? But these people love their baby photos -- of course they do, and we're fired up about it. So he said I've got this guy by the name of Vaclav -- and Vaclav is from Eastern Europe. He doesn't speak any English. He speaks in white board. You know these guys, they just have a white board and they talk in white board? So this is 1997, we're now thinking about people emailing photos. In 2004, this is no big deal. Photos are flying across email. But in 1997, nobody's talking about this stuff. So we're talking about it. So Vaclav creates myjones and myjones, we get the patent for. So we own the patent for customizing branded merchandising over a computer network. Our value is not so much as a soda company. Our value is as a company that can create ideas like myjones, myjonesmusic, and create the stuff that's truly in tune with our consumers in a positive way.

Getting Real

Look at somebody like Jon Stewart. Why is he so funny and so in synch with people? Because he's real. And Coke says it's real. But saying it and being it are two different things. So if you say it, you better be it. My daughter, she couldn't give a rat's ass about Coke. And her friends -- she's 10, they're 10 -- they don't care because it's everywhere. It's nothing new, it's nothing special. That's what big companies have forgotten. The most important thing is not about money.

If somebody said to me, Peter I want to give you $100 million, and I want you to launch a successful brand tomorrow, I'd say take your money and walk away. You want to give me $10 million and five years to do it, I'll knock the ball out of the park. It's not about money, it's about time.

We have people who come up to our door -- they've traveled from, say, Utah -- to go to the Jones mecca. And they cry when they're here. It's soda, dude. But I totally get it. People get fired up about Jones because it's theirs. It's not my soda. When you buy a bottle of Jones Soda there is a person's name on the bottle who took the photo. That is their soda. And when you go to a Target and buy a 12-pack of Jones, there are seven peoples' names on this. Seven people are saying, "This is my stuff" The most important thing is that whenever you do something with real people, it gets real. And that's the difference between saying you're real and being real.

Now I'm scamming. Companies are paying me to give talks. I think it's a pretty good gig. They'll pay me 10 grand to come talk to them. Maybe if I write a book, I get can that up there more. I do a good job and all the money goes to charity -- so it's not a total scam. So far we've built two schools.

Our customers, they can spot BS. And that's totally kosher. If you don't live up to what you say you're going to do, like being real, they throw you under the bus. You just feed their existing perception of companies. Right or wrong, that's the way it is.

And a Child Shall Lead Them

We're going to invoke an advisory board of kids. We're going to do it online. It's going to be like a reality TV show. One is actually going to be a board member. Somebody, 16-17 years old, is actually going to be a director of the company. Now that's absolutely insane. But it's not. It's totally sane. You know, I'm reading Barron's about having directors approve their advertising. These guys are 70 years old! How the heck can he approve anything about anything? How can they approve it? I'm just saying, I couldn't approve advertising for golfing or something. And I shouldn't approve it.