#111 - blue sky thinking.

to: eat!drink!snack! creative team
from: parowpyro.
re: summer promotional push!

hey team! eat!drink!snack! has been around for over a year now & i think it’s high time for us to take it to the next level, really start getting the word out there about our uniquely positioned snack blog. i believe that if we start doing some big picture stuff & develop a concept that we can all stand behind, something that really lets the masses know what we're all about, gets our message across to them, they'll check out the blog every free moment they have. it's about two different types of impressions, team--the one we make on the readers & the ones the blog gets, as measured by the almighty google.

here's the concept i have in mind: "eat!drink!snack! it's blue sky thinking." let me break it down for you. "eat!drink!snack!" because that's the name of the blog. "blue sky" because we're wide ranging. we focus on snacks & drinks in our pieces, but always leave the rest of the content up to our daily whims & ramblings & random stories. "thinking" because i think that the thinking man thinks & even the unthinking man eats & drinks & when he does, he often thinks, methinks.

i have a few initial ideas for the ad campaign. i'm just going to throw them out there, but you do what you can with them. that's why you're creative & i'm your overlord. we want to get one of those hip bands the kids like--preferably blue october or blues traveler or blue oyster cult--to record a song for radio & tv & online. maybe get them to do a surprise concert in the park. we'll partner with the toronto blue jays & the columbus blue jackets & get jet blue & amex blue as sponsors. we'll get vida blue as a spokesman & put up ads in the boston & chicago & d.c. subways--obviously on the blue line. to show that we care, we'll somehow tie in cleaning up the blue ridge parkway & saving the blue whale. the overall look will be TOTALLY ARTSY. i'm thinking something along the lines of derek jarman's blue or andy warhol's blue movie, with some music off of jandek's blue corpse.

with all that in place, i think we can solidly solidify ourselves as the #1 half-snack blog on the net. good luck, team. let's have a plan in place EOD tomorrow. i want to see major contributions from everyone. nothing less that 5000 percent! it's like rush's neil peart once wrote--"you don't get something for nothing. you can't have freedom for free. you won't get wise with the sleep still in your eyes, no matter what your dreams might be." LET'S THINK BIG, PEOPLE! EYES ON THE PRIZE!

regards,
parowpyro.

#111 - blue sky thinking.
snack: top crop blueberries
drink: blue point blueberry ale



last summer, i made no secret of my love for blueberries. love is a fickle fruit though, so i moved on from the blueberry within a matter of weeks, but like most relationships cut short too early, the love still lingered, so since i've been trying to rock the fresh fruit recently, i went back this past week & rekindled my love for the blueberries with a tub of top crop blueberries, grown locally in hammonton, nj. there's just something inherently satisfying & calming about eating a bowl of blueberries. they tend to last longer than other berries whilst walking the line between the sweetness of strawberry & the tartness of a raspberry. they're just plain & simple, middle-of-the-road blueberry joe, you know?

since i was eating a ton of them, i got curious about the science behind how they grow. the first fun fact i learned about them is that they're a "false berry" & a product of an "inferior ovary." you'd think that joke writes itself, but it turns out that it doesn't. while these ones are from jersey, a quarter of the u.s. blueberry crop comes for maine, who needs over 50K beehives just to pollinate the blueberry bushes. "maine. we're more than lobsters, steven king & torched topless coffee shops!"

a couple nights last week, i had myself a blue point blueberry ale along with a bowl of blueberries, in an attempt to create the most glaringly obvious snack-drink pairing ever.  blue point's been around for just over a decade & is brewed in patchogue, long island by the island's only microbrewery. i'm a fan of their toasted lager & hoptical illusion, but as for their blueberry ale, since i love blueberries & beer, i can't complain about it, but it isn't anything special.

my blue point is this: as long island's only microbrewery, they've got big shoes to fill. while they might please the masses with a so-so blueberry ale, they won't win any awards for fruitastiest beer. when you brew out of the same town that made a high school graduate of kevin connolly, E on hbo's entourage, you've got to reach higher than that. E would want more. E wouldn't settle for so-so. E would take that risk if he knew there was a chance it'd pay off. maybe they feel that since they're from strong island, they can't afford to be too fruity. if that's the case, all they need to do is look due south. fire island's right there, blue point brewery. it's ok to be too fruity.