How about some “dust” flavored soda?

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the original London cast recording of We Will Rock You, it reminded me of when my wife surprised me with tickets to the long-running Toronto show a few years ago.

I was struck by some of the merchandising that I saw in the lobby of the Canon Theatre; take this bottle of fufu berry-flavored Jones Soda for example.

I think that if Queen Productions were going to fully capitalize on the Jones’ label marketing angle, they should have issued a unique label for each character in the show instead of limiting it to the standard WWRY theatrical logotype. Yes, it’s a keepsake (until I drank it!), but I would have been prepared to buy a whole caseload of the silly things if it were a set of the cast.

Speaking of Jones Soda, their unique labeling business model really encourages crowdsourced image submissions from pretty much anyone on pretty much anything. As for who ultimately decides on which ones are selected, I think Jones has a voting system set up on their site so the general public can determine the images that swing them the most. Kinda like a huge focus group to figure out what appeals to that demographic.

Apart from taking crowdsourced image submissions, their site also encourages community discussion on the labels, flavors, and photos themselves, so they’ve really taken the social networking model and linked it to a tangible product. Too bad the stock for this Canadian-born company is taking a tumble.

Maybe they need to put out more of their time-honored flavors like “Turkey & Gravy,” “Perspiration,” “Sports Cream,” “Natural Field Turf,” “Dirt,” “Sweet Victory,” “Sweet Potato,” “Dinner Roll,” “Pea,” or “Antacid” (which has no medicinal qualities, apparently).

I wonder what kind of crazy Queen-inspired flavors they could come up with?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Soda
http://www.queenonline.com/en/news-archive/press-release-we-will-rock-you-gets-special-10th-anniversary-edition-cast-soundtrack/

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