• Categories

  Select Category ACL  (55) Activities  (102) arts & crafts  (24) Austin, Texas  (245) Blog Love  (8) Celebrities  (20) Chicago  (30) Clayton Christopher  (9) Cocktail Recipes  (12) Distribution  (2) earth day  (8) Epiphone Guitar  (8) Events  (188) Food & Beverage  (124) Fun Fun Fun Fest  (2) Grannyisms  (9) Guest Blogger  (15) Intern  (41) Live Music  (160) Lollapalooza  (56) Los Angeles  (5) Mile High Festival  (1) Muddy Buddy  (6) Nestle Waters  (2) New Years Eve  (2) new years resolutions  (2) Organic  (18) recipes  (3) Relief Fund  (2) Social Media  (19) Survey  (1) Sweet Bikes  (19) sweet birthdays  (1) Sweet Consumers  (74) Sweet Contests  (80) Sweet Leaf Dogs  (11) Sweet Leaf Tea Company News  (30) Sweet Leaf Tea Sightings  (9) Sweet Pets  (2) Sweet-Spot  (5) SXSW  (33) teasnacky  (13) Uncategorized  (188) Unwrapped  (2) Vacation  (9)

• Search

  Search for:

• Archives

  Select Month May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008

• Tag Cloud

  12 Days of Christmas @sweetleafdanny @SweetleafJacqui ACL ACL-Fest ACL-Festival Austin Austin City Limits Bicycles Chicago Citrus Green Tea Clayton Christopher consumers CONTEST Do512 free press summer fest Fun Fun Fun Fest granny Holidays Home Slice Pizza Houston iced tea interns Knuckle Rumbler Live Music Lollapalooza Mint-and-Honey-Green-Tea mixers Muddy Buddy music Phoenix Sweet Contests sweet leaf sweetleaf Sweet Leaf Tea sweetleaftea sweet stories Sweet Tea SXSW teasnacky Texas Tito's Vodka TX Whole Foods Market Zilker Park

  WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.

I’m always amazed by some of the phone calls we receive at Sweet Leaf Tea. As head of the Marketing department , which handles the calls, it serves as a good learning experience.
So are the people calling just big fans, or are they people that have nothing better to do all day than call and complain and we should get restraining orders?

Although most of our calls are positive, two negative ones stand out in my mind. The first was a voice mail about the taste of one of our products. It was amazingly hilarious and made the rounds here at the office. If I can find the file, I’ll post it. Needless to say he won’t be buying that flavor but he admitted he was still a big fan.

The second was a lady that called to complain about one of our grannyisms that are under the cap. I know some of them are walking a fine line, but she didn’t complain about one of those. Oh no, she complained about “wear clean underwear.” Yes, I’m serious. She wanted to know how we had the audacity to assume she wasn’t wearing clean underwear. How dare we? I’m wondering why that touched her enough to call. Was it a tragic accident? Was it that she wore dirty underwear as a child and now she was empowered to spread the message of clean underwear? Maybe she worked for Tide? Whatever the answer, I’m sure it goes back to some mother issues. (They always do)
So now, do we remove the saying for fear of being sued? Should we put a warning on the label “Grannyism may offend you.” It’s crazy that companies are now forced to issue warnings on their packaging to avoid all kinds of lawsuits. (Think McDonalds hot coffee incident)
Below are some great other actual examples I found on-line today.

Children’s Dimetapp Warns: Be Careful When Driving a Motor Vehicle
I always let my kid drive after some Dimetapp. It does make the ride more interesting

A Cell Phone Manual Warns: Don’t Try to Dry Your Phone in a Microwave Oven
Maybe there an Iphone app for that…..

A Hair Dryer Warns: Never Use While Sleeping
What is Sleeping Beauty going to do?

A Curling Iron Warns: Do Not Use While Bathing or in Shower
It didn’t say anything about swimming pools….

iPod Shuffle Warns: Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
Yummy, but I would try the ITouch as you fill up faster

ExtenZe Male Enhancement Pill: Do Not Use While Pregnant or Nursing
It stinks to be pregnant. They don’t let you do anything.

Razor Scooter Warns: This Product Moves When Used
I guess it’s not for mimes…

Washing Machine Warns: Do Not Put Any Person in This Washer
Ok, I tried this in college so maybe a good warning.

Clorox Bleach Wipes: Do Not Use as Diaper Wipes or for Personal Cleansing
OUCH! Seriously, this happened during a prank (which is pretty funny), or that person is just plain stupid.

A Vanishing Fabric Marker Warns: Should Not Be Used as a Writing Instrument for Signing Checks or Any Legal Documents
New excuse for why you didn’t have your homework….

And Finally, on an airport runway “Yield to airplanes”
I actually saw this one. Which luggage trolley driver said “I think I can beat that 747”.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,515238,00.html

Seriously (we don’t use that word too much here), we’ve heard from you out there that you’d like us to share with you all the crazy things that happen in the world we like to call Sweet Leaf Land. So here goes…

From the Green front, we will be launching Green Tips from Granny web site. In this site, Granny shows you simple ways you can become a better steward of the environment. You can pick and choose which tips you want to commit to and together we can have a huge impact on saving our valuable resources. In addition, be on the lookout for our reusable granny grocery bags. Not only are they handy, but they are also cool.

From the music front, we are excited to continue our relationship with some of the biggest music festivals around the country like ACL and Lollapalooza and also expanding that roster this year to include McDowell Mountain Music Festival, Sonoma Jazz Festival and Rothbury. Be on the lookout for our team and say hi to Happy, Genevieve, Peter and/or Alexandra along the way. (Tell them Adi told you to have them give you a free drink……congratulations in advance if that actually works)

In addition, be on the lookout for our Vespa teams, and our Sweet Leaf carts handing out cold, great tasting Sweet Leaf Tea in markets like XXXXX (Sorry this got censored out but we know some of our competitors read our blog. Honestly, can’t they come up with their own plans instead of copying us? )

Since I know I’ve lost a bunch of people with my ramblings, I feel I need to reward the ones who have stuck it out. We have limited edition Sweet Leaf Tea Granny KISS guitar picks! Send us a note and we’ll get one out to you.

Cheers
Adi

Hi.  I’m Eric.  I’m one of the marketing interns here at Sweet Leaf Tea.

As I reflect on my experience and our efforts during South By Southwest, I can only think of one word to describe it: mind-blowing. Ok, two words. This was my first ever SXSW, and it was a great way to start by marketing for Sweet Leaf Tea. With around 1900 bands and thousands in attendance, SXSW 2009 was a huge success. Although it was an entire week of free music, food, drinks, shows, and other festivities, it seems as though it went by too fast. I was fortunate enough to be in Austin all week to participate and market our product on the streets throughout the festival.

If you attended SXSW this year, there is a pretty darn good chance you saw us there. If you attended one of our 33 parties, you were probably drinking Sweet Leaf and/or some form of scrumtralescent Sweet Leaf cocktail. Believe, me, I was. If you found yourself on Soco, the Fader Fort, Auditorium Shores, 6^th Street or just downtown during the hours of 10 p.m. – 1 a.m., there’s a pretty good chance you saw us too. If you came to SXSW and didn’t see a single Sweet Leaf bottle or logo, well I just feel sorry for you for missing out. As Austin’s own organic tea company, we like to think we were the unofficial but legit beverage sponsor of SXSW.

We were lucky enough to market a product that basically sold itself solely by its delicious taste. It was rare to encounter someone who didn’t want some of the free homemade granny goodness that we were dealing. During our eight days of blitzing, guerilla marketing, and free tea slinging, we gave away roughly FIVE THOUSAND BOTTLES!  If that’s not a lot of free tea I don’t know what is. Those 5,000 do NOT even include all the tea we supplied at our 33 co-sponsored parties. If you think that I’d be sick of drinking Sweet Leaf Tea by now, then you, my friend, are very false.

South By Southwest 2009 was a huge success for us, and it will only get better from here. A wise man once wrote, “There were about 150,000 SXSW attendees, and we rocked 50,000. So you basically had a one in three chance of running into Sweet Leaf Tea” (Mercado, Happy. 485). The only real let down during SXSW were our defective Sweet Leaf Vespas. Bossman Happy tried tirelessly to get them working, but it was out of his control. The imported Vespas were crap, to say the least, and needed new engines. However, we did get one good day of blitzing out of one before the engine finally failed at the Fader Fort, leaving Happy stranded. Luckily he had us glorious interns at his disposal to rescue him in the van so we could continue providing SXSWers with free tea.

And last but not least is the highlight of my SXSW experience. I am of course speaking about the nightly drives downtown with the mobile gobos, which projected our logo on just about every building downtown. Just when you thought you could escape us at night, there we were, swangin’ and slangin’ that tea. Happy and the marketing team came up with the idea to rig two powerful gobo/leko lights on a moving vehicle so we could project our logo downtown during South By, and left me with the responsibility of fulfilling his dream. Well, we did it, and if you saw our logo downtown then we succeeded. As I drove around, I was never surprised to see hundreds of drunks in awe at our moving logo, so I just smiled and gave out as much tea as I could.

To top it all off, our big party with Do512 came Saturday and brought SXSW to a glorious close. After a long week of work, I finally had the chance to enjoy some free shows and taste my very first Mint and Honey cocktail, and it changed my life forever. Seriously, it did.

Many of you may have heard the news about Nestle investing in Sweet Leaf Tea.  Many of you may ask, “Why would Sweet Leaf allow the worlds largest food and beverage company to own part (minority share) of their company?”  Here’s why…

It’s the dream of every entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry to grow their brand to a place where it becomes a household name.  This is especially true because the passion that has driven David and I for the past 10yrs (and there have been some really tough times) is the belief that consumers everywhere should have the right to buy a better tasting, better for you, organic and all natural bottled tea.  Unfortunately w/ Coke, Pepsi and Cadbury controlling 90% of the cold box space in grocery and convenience stores consumers options are typically very limited to what the big guys fill the shelves with… high fructose corn syrup and flavoring, often sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (bad stuff found in sodas and many other beverages).

Having Nestle help us with our distribution it will put our brand on more shelves and give more consumers the choice of buying a better bottled tea.  They are also going to help us reduce our bottle weight which is great for the environment (Nestle uses less plastic in their bottles than any other beverage company on the planet).  If it takes letting the “Big Guys” own a piece of our company in order to give consumers healthier and tastier choices then I think it’s absolutely worth it.  If they buy the rest of our company years down the road and change our recipe (won’t happen under my watch) then David and I will start another tea company and do it all over again.

Thanks for your support and helping us get to this exciting stage in our journey.  We have a lot of innovation around new flavors and new products brewing up in Granny’s kitchen so stay tuned!

« go back