Soda company to put LOLcats on bottle labels

Jones Soda is teaming with Icanhascheezburger.com to put LOLcats on bottle labels.

(Credit: Jones Soda/Icanhascheezburger.com)

I can has a break?

OK. I love Icanhascheezburger.com, and LOLcats in general, as much as the next guy. Truly. I have spent hours, in aggregate, laughing myself to tears on the site.

But when I ran across an item on the site on Tuesday morning announcing that it is teaming up with the trendy micro-soda company Jones Soda to run a contest to put LOLcats on root beer--and other flavor--bottle labels, I had to ask myself if someone was maybe huffing a little too much catnip.

LOLcats, of course, are the whimsical combinations of silly pidgin English phrases and funny pictures of cats or other animals. And Icanhascheezburger.com is the lion in the LOLcat kingdom. And I even think Jones soda can be pretty good.

The two outfits are teaming to find the highest vote-getting LOLcats in a special contest, the top five of which will adorn special bottles of the soda.

But I just don't quite see the connection between LOLcats and the soda buying community. It's not that I don't think that a lot of people who buy Jones soda also enjoy LOLcats. It's just that I'm not sure how well they translate onto a soda label. It would be one thing if the LOLcat choices were specifically about soda in some way, but because they're going to be the top-five vote-getting choices from Icanhascheezburger.com's contest, they will likely be about walruses without buckets, or tigers pretending to be monorails. There's just likely to be a disconnect.

On the other hand, maybe I'm overthinking this. I suppose it's possible that people will be walking down the aisle in their local supermarket, see the strange labels on the soda and laugh themselves into buying a few bottles.

And people do love custom labels, or magazine covers, things that bring a little social context to their everyday products. Just look at Reason magazine and the personalized satellite images of each subscriber's address that it put on the cover a few years ago.

This won't be quite so personalized, however. And that's probably good, since LOLcats definitely follow the 80/20 rule.

So will this sell more soda or raise the profile of LOLcats? I have no idea. I just wish instead of partnering with a soda company, Icanhascheezburger was teaming up with politicians to make campaign posters. Now that would be a mashup I'd like to see.

[GhostAlph]

Jones Soda

Yeah, I'd say you'r overthinking it a bit - if you've looked at any of the past Jones Soda labels, you'll notice that very few, if any, have anything to do with soda per se. In fact, the sometimes goofy, consumer-provided label photographs that caught my attention; labels as diverse as the flavor selection.
These days it's rather rare to see a label that actually pertains to the product except in that it has the logo or name somewhere on it. Look at the latest Pepsi cans. What does a city skyline have to do with soda? About as much as a LOLCat.

[mattheid]

Hmm.... Slow Day?

what you couldn't find anything else to write about? Have you ever even heard on Jones Soda? Jones Soda is known, albeit not widely known, for putting weird random pictures on their labels; most of which are sent in their customers. LOLcats on soda labels doesn't make sense, however, LOLcats on Jones Soda labels make perfect sense.

When you wokeup this morning did you think "Hmm... I'm going to write something today that highlights my ignorance." I don't know why I bother reading the garbage on this site anyways.

[4fthawaiian]

LOLCats + Campaign Posters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellysue/2250108121/

You said you wanted to see it ;)

[tehpurplepills]

ignorance?

lol take it easy i dont see how not knowing a soda company is supposed to be highlighting somebodys ignorance

[ajpapson]

www.yeswecanhas.com - political lolcats!

Your wish for lolcat political ads comes true at
www.yeswecanhas.com. w00t!

[scottwcox]

It's not about marketing...

I don't think putting the kitties on the bottles was a marketing
ploy, per se. To analyze it as such is probably missing the point. I
think that Jones' goal was to increase the value of the product,
albeit just a smidge, for those who already drink the stuff. That, if
you ask me, is the best "marketing" a company can have for a
product.