web20 speaker presentation jones soda

Translating Online Success into Offline Retail Sales:

a Jones Soda Case StudyAngel Djambazov, OPM, Jones Soda

Translating Online Success into Offline Retail Sales: a Jones Soda Case Study

Speaker IntroductionAngel Djambazov Background:

I come from a background in journalism to the online space and have worked with the Bag Borrow or Steal, Penta Water and Onlineshoes brands.

Awards:

• Affiliate Manager of the Year (2006) award from Affiliate Summit

• In-house Manager of the Year (2006) award from ABestWeb

• Part of PopShops team awarded consecutive Best Affiliate Tool awards (’07 - ‘08) from ABestWeb,

• Affiliate Manager of the Year (2009) award from Affiliate Summit.

Currently I am one of the founding team members of PopShops.com and serve as the Managing Editor for Revenews.com. I also have the pleasure of being the OPM for Keen Shoes and Jones Soda.


Brief History of Jones Soda

surf and snowboarding shops, tattoo and piercing parlors, as well as national retail clothing and music stores.

The strategy was successful and Jones Soda now enjoys a national distribution in such places as Panera Bread, Wall-Mart, Target, and Alaska Airlines. All this while maintaining the type of “street cred” that makes larger brands jealous.

In 1987 company founder and president Peter van Stolk recognized the potential of emerging "alternative" products in the beverage industry; Jones Soda quickly gained recognition and awards for its unique packaging featuring constantly changing labels created and submitted by its consumers.

Jones Soda focused on an alternative distribution strategy by placing its own coolers bearing the signature flames, in unique venues, such as skate,


Building Loyalty

Building loyalty is about staying true to the brand. You can’t be edgy one day and politically correct the next without losing brand integrity. Your audience will know.


Building Loyalty

You should consider this when you choose someone to endorse your product.


Building Loyalty

You should consider this when creating content or ads to represent your brand.


Label as Canvas

From the beginning Jones Soda thought of it’s label as a canvas.


Label as Canvas

From the beginning Jones Soda thought of it’s label as a canvas.

Key to Jones Soda’s success is inviting the customer to create art on that canvas. To let the soda they drink reflect their personality.

In many ways Jones Soda was Web 2.0 before the term was fashionable.


Success Equals Growing Pains

Due to a combination of pressure from retail partners and the appeal of an unreached segment of consumers, Jones Soda launched a line of cans. Without the signature label consumer adoption and sales fell way below expectations.


Success Equals Growing Pains

In 2007 Jones Soda beat out mainstream soda providers to become the exclusive soda provider for the Seattle Seahawks at Quest Field.

Fan response at the games and sales provided proof of a winning combination.

However even Jones Soda, for whom one of the bestselling flavors is Turkey and Gravy, had a hard time marketing a collector’s pack with flavors like “Dirt” and “Perspiration” to a mixed audience.


Barriers to Selling Soda Online

#1 Barrier is Cost of ShippingThe weight of the soda and the bottles is very expensive to ship. It is even more expensive to deal with such things as returns and breakage.

So the question becomes how to differentiate the online experience enough to entice consumers to look beyond the cost of shipping.


Demographic Targets

With a limited budget we focused our online marketing on two demographics. The criteria for both was to develop an audience that we could:

-Engage rapidly online-Create direct online sales-Have the most cost-effective pull through in aiding offline sales.

The Masses Key Community Influncers


Demographic Targets

-MyJones-Seahawks Game Day Photos-Campaign Cola -Graffiti-Jones Soda Merchandise

The Masses Key Community Influncers

-MyJones-I Can Has Cheezburger-Blogworld Sponsorship-Comic and Gamer Geeks*photo above by Brian Solis of his Jones Soda label distributed at Blogworld.


Launch of MyJones

With the launch of MyJones in 2007, Jones Soda gave its core audience complete control of the label. Online users can upload a photo and place text on the back to make the soda they drink truly part of their personality and memories.

MyJones currently makes up 80% of Jones Soda’s sales online.


Case of Ron Paul

During the Presidential Election of 2008 Jones Soda launched Campaign Cola exclusively online. We designed the product and our marketing tactics to ensure placement on political blogs, forums and major news outlets carrying political stories. When Campaign Cola was released it featured photos of the three remaining candidates at the time:

-Hillary Clinton-John McCain-Barrack Obama

The micro-site for Campaign Cola also featured a voting element allowing Jones Soda customers to vote with their purchases which candidate they wanted to win.


Case of Ron Paul

We expected buzz, however Jones was unprepared for the tidal wave of emails from irate Ron Paul supporters who, despite the fact their candidate was no longer in the race, were livid that he wasn’t represented in the Campaign Cola race.

Two weeks after the Campaign Cola launch Ron Paul finally got his campaign off the ground and Ron Paul Revolution Cola joined the race.


Case of Ron Paul

And the results?

Listening to the online audience turned out to be a profitable move. Ron Paul quickly outsold both Hillary and McCain, and came close to matching Obama’s sales.

Our timing was just right. Campaign Cola buyers caught the fervor of the moment and we ended up reprinting both Obama and Ron Paul ‘s soda dozens of times.

Equally as important was the brand awareness generated by the campaign. Over 100 Million impressions during the length of the campaign at a cost of $0.20 CPM.


Case of the lolcats

Despite initial success online Jones Soda was still seeking ways to replicate the offline interaction with its audience online.

In December 2007, the suggestion of I Can Has Cheezburger first came up. Despite and odd ball collection of flavors in its corporate portfolio Jones Soda was skeptical whether the Jones audience would respond to lolcats…


Case of the lolcats

…really?


Case of the lolcats

Finally corporate tentatively agreed. For the next several months we worked on developing the right promotion addressing the following concerns:

-Technical challenge of integrating MyJones with ICHC- Making sure we dealt with both audiences organically so as not to repeat

the disconnect with the Seahawks collector’s pack- Handling copyright issues- Making sure the engagement equaled sales


Case of the lolcats

With Ben Huh’s, CEO of ICHC, input we agreed on creating a contest. The contest would run for one month on ICHC and users could enter their lolcat photo into the contest. The prize was national distribution on a Jones Soda bottle run. The winner would be picked by the ICHC community.

The contest launched on March 24, 2008.

One month later we had received over 20,000 entries!


Case of the lolcats

Beyond simply participating the ICHC community embraced both the brand and the contest. The response was more than anyone expected:

-Over 250,000 votes were cast in the search for the winning lolcat-Spike in traffic to Jones Soda driven by 12,000 posts about the contest -Contest was mentioned by the television network CW

And sales? -172% increase in MyJones sales month-over-month-Sales from ICHC helped drive 42% growth year-over-year in ‘08


Case of the lolcats

Management at Jones Soda was understandably thrilled with the results. It was the kind of success you share with the shareholders during the quarterly meetings.

Everyone wanted to take that growth and expand upon it even more. Bringing the ICHC labeled Jones Soda to retail was the next logical step.

There was only one problem. The winner was…


And the Winner Is

…this guy


Challenges of Taking “this guy” to Retail

-Expense inherent with retail distribution

-Lead time for specialty packaging could take months to coordinate with retail buyers

-Each chain or individual store has varying packing and quantity requirements

-Each chain or individual store caters to a slightly different audience with different tastes

-Retailers tend to stick with proven merchandise rather than unproven specialty products that take up valuable shelf space


How lolcats Went to Retail

Luckily both the folks at Jones Soda and at ICHC can be very creative when put to the task.

We decided the best opportunity was to package “Indecent Exposure” kitty with lolcat community favorites. That way we could cater better to the audience slant of our retail partners.

We then went through the process of making sure we cleared any ownership or copyright issues with the photos.


How lolcats Went to Retail

In the Fall of 2008 the ICHC labeled Jones Soda bottles hit retail shelves. 13,362 cases in all were shipped to retail partners like:

A few lolcats even made it is far as the United Kingdom.


Working Towards a RepeatKey to not becoming stale is to ever evolve your online marketing. If you listen, your consumer will tell you how.

In Jones Soda’s case we are working hard to repeat the level of engagement we reached with I Can Has Cheezburger in new ways.

WhatNext?


Working Towards a RepeatOne of this year's strategies is using Jones Soda’s counter-culture affinity to expand on co-branding opportunities with brands who have a similar audience.

For instance we recently launched an Emily Strange collector’s pack in conjunction with Dark Horse Comics.


In Conclusion

Angel DjambazovOwner, Custom Tailored MarketingEmail: [email protected]: @djambazov

Contact Information:

Any Questions?

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