On April Fool's Day this year, Urban Juice & Soda Co. posted the following press release on its corporate Web site, jonessoda.com: "John Deeree Acquires Jones Soda in a $45 million stock swap deal."
"It was a joke, full of typos and misspellings, but it was a rather squeamish thing from a PR perspective," admits Web Master Ernest Von Rosen. "Our investors were reportedly angry that we sold out for $45 million. But we had run it by our CEO, Peter van Stolk, who got a kick out of it."
There isn't a PR pro or consultant in the world who would advise a corporation or client that faux press releases are smart PR. But on the Internet, companies are exploring new ways to build brands - and cause noise - since it's estimated that more than 68 million people worldwide are logging onto the Web.
Jonessoda.com, the virtual gateway into a little-known beverage company listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, is building a following for its products with some outlandish tactics. Despite its risk-taking, it's one of the few companies John J. Barr, a principal with the Barr & Wilcox Group, thinks is perfecting brand building on the Web.
Barr lumps the Jones Soda site with other high-profile contenders such as marthastewart.com and johnsonand- johnson.com.
Speaking at a recent PRSA conference, Barr noted that corporations are sorely lacking when it comes to communicating with audiences on the Net. But on the other hand: "The Internet can't overcome a bad reality," adds Barr. "Simply putting up a fancy Web site won't change reality. A bad annual report is still a bad annual report on the Web."
In this week's issue of PR NEWS, we look at two soft drink companies forging new territory in cyberspace and pinpoint the funding they've devoted to their Web sites.
The first is jonessoda.com. It's a funky site that posts investor relations information, news releases and profiles on its executives - the mainstream stuff that PR departments typically generate - among a bevy of avant-garde content. It also courts the young and the restless by scheduling chats with skateboard champions. Visitors are invited to send in photos to be considered as possible bottle labels. Those photos are posted online.
The second is dietcoke.com, a site going through some growing pains as it evolves into a branding vehicle whose focus is "community." It lists comics, sports scores, crossword puzzles, horoscopes and, recently, even linked to a feature about massage therapy on Microsoft's sidewalk.com.
So, what's the link between a masseuse and a soft drink?
"We're positioning the site as an emotional friend for Diet Coke drinkers," says Media Relations Manager Diana Garza. "Our focus groups have indicated that Diet Coke drinkers are 30-plus and multi taskers. We don't want the site to be too commercial and we don't want to hit visitors over the head with corporate information."
The site is still being morphed into the company's ideal of a brand portal. And it doesn't include the buzz, like press releases, most corporate sites boast. (AMG, 604/669-4120; Coca-Cola, 404/676-4684 Fearless Media, 781/891-0005; SIG, 617/867-1000; Urban Juice & Soda Co., 604/654-6055)
Two Web Branding Strategies
Jonessoda.com
Launch:
January 1998
Original design company & cost: Fearless Media, New York, was paid between $15,000 and $20,000 for a half-year contract to develop the site. Urban Juice & Soda Co. began a major overhaul in fall 1998 when the site was transferred from a contracted file server in New York to Vancouver. Ernest Von Rosen, owner of his own Web firm, AMG (Advanced Media Group), now oversees the site.
Monthly maintenance: Under $3,000. The site isn't managed by marketing. CEO Peter van Stolk, approves all of the changes and the content. Content is generated on the corporate level, with input from a variety of players, including sales and marketing.
Site philosophy and history: There are now more than 100 pages, three to four times what the company had when the site debuted. The first thing Von Rosen did when taking over was create feedback forms, which he began putting online at the beginning of this year. "Our traffic increased almost overnight," he recalled.
Dedicated staff: Von Rosen. There are several dozen employees at the company's Vancouver headquarters.
Measurement: 29,000 unique visitors last month.
PR iInvolvement: Minimal. PR queries are handled by CFO Jennifer Cue and there is no established corporate communications division.
Its next big splash: The company won't provide details but plans to promote the site at beverage trade shows.
Dietcoke.com
Launch:
The site went live in February. Coca-Cola says it's a work in progress. Other domain names Coca-Cola owns are coke.com, cocacola.com and sprite.com.
Original design company & cost: Costing the company about $1 million, its design was outsourced to Strategic Interactive Group, Boston. The company also bought a separate server to house the site since it didn't want to clog the corporation's technology infrastructure and because it wants to be guaranteed room for expansion.
Monthly maintenance: Not broken out by the company.
Site philosophy and history: Building dietcoke.com as a community was based on focus groups and mall intercept surveys which profiled Diet Coke drinkers as busy professionals who don't have time to spend hours chasing down buzz on the Web.
Dedicated staff: Six, mostly techies. Dietcoke.com is managed in-house by Kari Bjorhus, senior manager of new media and information. She is the lead person on the company's internal Web site steering committee, comprised of about 15 executives, including IT and marketing heads.
Measurement: Coca-Cola hasn't promoted the site, so it won't release its number of visitors. What it does say is that in the last three months, the average user has stayed on the site for 20 minutes, Coca-Cola says.
PR involvement: The site comes under the corporate communications umbrella. Coca-Cola has about 100 people handling communication functions at its Atlanta headquarters.
Its next big splash: Partnering with publishers to give visitors unique content - Spokesperson Diana Garza wouldn't detail what's in the hopper, but said it could strike a deal with Good Housekeeping to provide recipes, for example, or run excerpts from Simon and Schuster books.