8 A
SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015
Want to help kids at St. Jude’s? Drink your broccoli
understand this, which is why
Ned
Hickson we are often placed in special
cubicles that are refrigerated.
Or at the very least
equipped with a drain pan.
Yet somehow, beverage
companies continue to over-
look us as potential thirst-
quenching icons when devel-
oping trendy ad campaigns.
Chances are, you’ll never
see a commercial featuring a
humor columnist at a key-
board with green Gatorade
streaming out of every pore in
his body. Or witness a humor
columnist emerge from a
droplet of Propel fitness water
and do a back flip out of an
office chair (which we often
do, by the way, sometimes for
no reason at all).
That’s because our segment
of the beverage-buying mar-
ket is considered too small to
worry about, even though, as
analysts have shown, it is a
As I’m sure you can imag-
ine, being a humor columnist,
I am constantly working up a
sweat. In fact, I can already
feel perspiration forming. By
the end of this paragraph, I
will be a drippy, sweat-
stained mess. Most people
don’t know it can take hours
to finish a column.
The reason has nothing to
do with procrastination,
writer’s block or even the
ability to Google History of
the Star Wars universe; many
of us humor columnists sim-
ply become too sweaty to
operate our keyboards with-
out sliding off and potentially
endangering ourselves and
others.
Newsrooms everywhere
powerful one, at least in
terms of odor.
According to the advertis-
ing people I spoke with, the
key is finding a beverage
product that fits the humor
columnist profile; something
that seamlessly combines
beverage consumption and
sweaty writing; something
that speaks to millions of
thirsty consumers and tells
them:
Hey, what you really want
is a beverage that tastes
funny.
I had given up on finding
such a beverage until I
opened a package from
Seattle, containing what has
to be the strangest soda con-
cept since New Coke. In this
case, we’re talking about
quenching your thirst with the
crisp, refreshing taste of
“Broccoli Rice Casserole.”
Or “Salmon Paté.”
Or my personal favorite,
“Turkey and Gravy.”
Apparently, the folks at the
Jones Soda Company, who
produce these and other weird
flavors each year as part of a
limited-edition “Holiday
Pack,” are aggressively tar-
geting a niche market known
in the advertising world as the
“gagging consumer.”
This became clear during
an impromptu taste test I held
in our newsroom, where all
10 of my test subjects pre-
ferred drinking these sodas
over, say...
The taste of bile.
I knew right away I’d
found my product. Who bet-
ter than a humor columnist to
promote a beverage that is
marginally preferred over
stomach juice?
I immediately contacted
Diana Turner at Jones Soda
Company and informed her of
my availability.
I then called her back and
explained I meant as an
advertising icon.
After aggressive negotia-
tions that seemed to go on
forever but lasted closer to
four seconds, I was told that
the goal of the “Holiday
Pack” was to raise $150,000
for children’s charities, and
that paying for a “beverage
icon” would mean less money
for those charities.
I told her I was cheap.
She said every dollar
counts.
I agreed to do it for free.
She asked me to please
stop calling her.
As it stands, I still haven’t
become a beverage icon, and
it doesn’t look like I’ll
become one anytime soon.
Until then, I’ll just have to
quench my thirst for becom-
ing a promotional figurehead
by consuming these extra bot-
tles of “Turkey and Gravy”
soda.
That’s if I can hold onto
them with these sweaty
hands.
Visit www.jonessoda.com to
find out more about its fund-
raiser for St. Jude’s Chil-
dren’s Hospital and Toys For
Tots.
Or you can write me at
Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10,
Florence, OR 97439, or at
nedhickson@icloud.com.
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