Innocent drinks have quietly started blogging. Which is fantastic. The brand excudes such a genuine, funny and human voice that it's going to be fascinating to watch the way they blog. Hurrah for them. And shame on every other drinks company that has nothing to say and no courage to say it.
Nice. I've always been impressed by Jones Soda (www.jonessoda.com). They don't necessarily have blogs, but they definitely have always involved community in their marketing.
Good blog. Glad to have found it.
Posted by: Gary Stein | June 09, 2006 at 05:43 PM
That's true. I always forget about Jones. (I don't think they've made it to the UK yet.) They are very smart and community-y.
Posted by: russell | June 09, 2006 at 07:05 PM
Nice - Innocent does indeed have the perfect brand voice [eek I'm slightly uncomfortable using the word brand now - Russell what have you done!] since it built its...err..relationship with its customers [phew that will do] on having a direct conversation off the label.
In Australia there is a rip off of Innocent called Nudie that is completely unaffiliated. I may be an advocate of Genius Stealing but this seems a little cheeky...
http://www.nudie.com.au/
Posted by: Faris | June 10, 2006 at 05:23 AM
Something about Innocent having a blog that feels strange to me.
Bit like when they do TV ads.
Posted by: Colman | June 10, 2006 at 08:44 AM
If you visit Fruit Towers (HQ of Innocent) you will see a wall of imitators from all over the world. Nudie is one of them, but there are perhaps fifty in total.
These people have copied the bottle shape, label design or (like Nudie) the name.
Paul, I agree with you about the TV ads (although I think blogging is OK).
Posted by: Ben | June 10, 2006 at 11:53 PM
I feel like they might stop tantalizing me, and start getting on my nerves. I've noticed a trend towards pushing the larger pack sizes on the copy on the side of the standard little bottle sizes, which I don't like.
Saying that I bought one of the large cartons today, so maybe I'm just talking nonsense.
Posted by: Colman | June 11, 2006 at 01:12 AM
I agree about the TV ads - always seemed such a shame considering there were the poster boy for how to build a brand using non-traditional channels, packaging, cool events etc.
But then again I love the big pack sizes at meetings, and I guess when they went into supermarkets there was that pressure to do TV to support in order to get shelf space and that.
Posted by: Faris | June 11, 2006 at 11:19 AM
The story with Nudie is a bit more than 'influenced'. A few years ago a man called Tim came over from Australia to talk to us about obtaining the license to run the innocent business in Oz. We were pretty excited - he seemed like a nice chap - so we started talking to Tim. He spent quite a bit of time at Fruit Towers getting to know us and the business.
After a while we had all of the legal papers drawn up, ready for Tim to become innocent. We were happy for him to carry on our good work on the other side of the world. But right at the last minute, Tim had a change of heart, decided not to sign and disappeared back off to Sydney.
Much to our surprise, a few months later a smoothie company called Nudie appeared in Australia. There were a few similarities to innocent. Things looked familiar. And the man behind Nudie? Why, Tim of course.
Posted by: Nick | March 21, 2007 at 04:12 PM