AdWeek: Jones Soda Launches 'Full Flavor, Full Dose' Soft Drinks With a Cannabis Kick

The boutique brand, known for consumer-designed labels and oddball flavors, breaks ground with Mary Jones

In the fast-growing world of THC-spiked beverages, there’s a whole menu of choices like iced tea, lemonade, coffee, cocoa, mocktails, booze-free wine and mimosas, energy drinks and sparkling waters.

Products come in bottles and cans—Cann, by the way, is a best-selling “social tonic” with a pioneering Pride campaign and a Hollywood following—and via drops, mixes, syrups and elixirs from brands such as Keef, Hi-Fi Hops, Levia and Wunder.

What’s missing from this extensive lineup is a mainstream drinks player—a Coca-Cola or an Anheuser-Busch—that has put a weed-laced spin on its core recipe.

Jones Soda—known for its consumer-designed labels and off-the-wall flavors like Bug Juice and Blue Bubblegum—wants to be the groundbreaker on that front. The craft soda maker is launching Mary Jones, a drinks line that offers several of its most popular flavors, but with a cannabis kick.

“We’re taking our brand as-is into cannabis,” Bohb Blair, chief brand officer of the Mary Jones Cannabis Co. and CMO of Jones Soda, told Adweek. “It’s proudly part of Jones Soda.”

The cleverly named Mary Jones products, infused with 10 milligrams of THC, are debuting at California dispensaries this weekend in root beer, berry lemonade, green apple and orange and cream varieties.

“It’s a real milestone,” Tim Dodd, co-founder and CEO of Sweet Flower dispensary chain, told Adweek. “It’s a remarkable move by Jones because it’s so intentional. They’re not doing it on the sly.”

Dodd, whose LA-area retailers are stocking Mary Jones, is bullishly predicting “the summer of beverages.” He thinks the new products could boost that overall trend, along with sending a broader message.

“Having the Jones name will give consumers confidence in the product, and it increases interest in the category, where there aren’t a lot of legacy brands,” Dodd said. “And having a traditional, publicly traded CPG company come into cannabis helps destigmatize the industry. It’s part of the evolution of the space.”

A license to chill

Senior leaders at the Seattle-based Jones Soda have created a subsidiary and forged several partnerships—with Kiva Sales and Service, Tinley Beverage Co. and Sōrse Technology—to bring Mary Jones to life.

But unlike some typical licensing arrangements, where trademarks are handed off, execs intend to be hands-on.

“We’re taking ownership and pride and control as we go into cannabis,” Blair said. “It’s a brand extension—we’re extending our equity into a different category.”

For context, there’s another heritage brand, Pabst Blue Ribbon, that has put its stamp on weed. But the infused beverage—developed by the startup Pabst Labs that licenses the PBR name and logo—isn’t beer, it’s “high seltzer.” (It’s still verboten in the U.S. to mix alcohol and cannabis in the same product.)

That leaves Jones Soda in a class by itself in translating its core product to weed, with some necessary formulation tweaks.

For more information on Mary Jones and their launch, see the full article here.