Extreme LemonyLime
By Mark Tumarkin

This has to rate as one of the better April Fool's Day jokes I've come across. I have to admit it took me in for a while. Guess I'm still touchy about our close call with Guinness and Smirnoff Ice at the Medieval Faire. So when I read this, I just got disgusted. To paraphrase their marketing slogan, I thought "Guys, this just isn't worthy of you." Then, I thought about the date, I didn't actually see this till April 2nd, and went to the web link at the bottom. Sure enough, Greg Koch was just having some fun. From the emails, it looks like a lot of folks were taken in.

On a side note, I just learned this year about the origin of April Fool's Day. Never really thought about it before. Seems that when the Catholic Church switched to the Gregorian calendar, King Charles IX of France bought into the idea and went along with it. Prior to the change, New Year's was celebrated in late March with a week of parties that went on till April 1st. So once the dates were changed, people who forgot about the new calendar were the butt of jokes, invited to parties that didn't exist etc. The butt of these jokes was called the "poisson d'avril" or April Fish. The practice spread from France to England to the US, and somewhere along the way became known as April Fool's Day.

Anyhow, here is the hoax perpetrated on us by Greg Koch of Stone Brewing. He circulated the following news release widely on the Internet and many people were taken in by it, including yours truly.

Stone Brewing To Release New "Extreme LemonyLime" Malternative Beverage
 
San Marcos, CA --- Stone Brewing announced today that the company will be
entering the fast growing malternative market with a new product called
Stone Extreme. The malt-based product will feature a light citrusy flavor
and a 5.5% alc/vol.
 
"Our history as a company up to this point has been to brew full-flavored,
big character brews for the discerning beer lover," stated Stone CEO Greg
Koch. "We feel that we have been missing out totally on a segment of the
population. After all, there are a lot of people out there drinking sweet
flavored alcoholic drinks like appletinis, and we thought we should get in
with the race to get their money too."
 
Like other category leaders in the malternative segment, Stone has made 
the
flavor profile of the new "Extreme LemonyLime" no more complicated than a
typical can of soda. "Sure, we could continue just brewing beers that 
appeal
to the educated and sophisticated beer lover, but we decided we should be
able to go after the lemming consumer too."
 
Even though Stone does not have a well-recognized distilled spirits brand
partnering up with them in the creation of "Extreme Lemony Lime," the
company feels strongly that there is a market for their new product.
Industry reports suggest that legal-drinking-age consumers with the
undeveloped palates of teenagers are demanding more and more light, fruity
and fizzy alcoholic drinks. The company expects that the core consumer for
Extreme LemonyLime will be in the very influential 21 to 21-and-a-half age
group. "Consumers who buy these soda-pop flavored malternatives are 
clearly
newbies to alcohol and don't like the taste of alcohol --- they just want
the effect. Our research has shown that our existing line-up of full
flavored beers does not appeal to this type of consumer."
 
"We are especially pleased with our melding of the words 'lemon' and 
'lime,'
thereby creating the entirely new word 'Lemonylime,'" said Koch. "This 
word
'Lemonylime' tested very well with our target audience when we interviewed
them at random in the shopping malls. It speaks clearly to the person who
has grown up drinking gallons of soda-pop and eating several candy bars
every day." The word 'Ice' was also considered as a strong candidate to be
in the name, but it was felt that target consumers for the brand might 
have
trouble remembering a name as long as 'Extreme LemonyLime Ice.' "We've put
pictures of icicles on the bottle, which makes it look extremely
refreshing," added Koch.
 
Figuring that the taste of the product is not nearly as important as
throwing boatloads of money after it, the Extreme LemonyLime roll out
program will include on-premise promotions coupled with billboards, print
and broadcast advertising.  Total media spending for the balance of 2002 
is
expected to reach more than ten million. "We have full realization that
consumers for products in this segment are not able to create their own
opinions and are superficially trendy," said Stone CEO Greg Koch. "As a
result, we will spend heavily to lead consumers firmly by the nose to this
trendy and approachable product."

For more info, visit 

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