Writing Samples

 

10 Things You Didn't Know About Iced Tea

 

Plus - What Did Brad Paisley's Tea Twitter Say to Los Angeles?

 

Any caterer or restaurant in and around Charlotte and South Carolina will serve Iced Tea. Here' s the surprising story of how this refreshing drink came about.

 

Green Tea?

 

1. For 150 years Iced Tea was made using only green tea. The original healthy drink was born in the South in 1795. South Carolina was the first State in the U.S. to grow green tea and the only State to produce it commercially.

 

2- Early green tea was served chilled. It was spiked with liquor and packed a punch. So they called it- "Punch!"

 

3-The oldest Southern tea punch recipes in print are made with the original green tea, not black. The oldest sweet chilled tea recipe in print comes from a community cookbook published in 1879 called "Housekeeping in Old Virgina" by Marion Cabell Tyree.

 

Northern Exposure

 

4- While iced tea was born with a Southern accent it was almost 100 years old before it was introduced to the rest of America. In 1893, a concessionaire sold it at the Chicago World's Fair. It was almost ten years later at the World's Fair in St. Louis that iced cold tea was popularized (not invented).

 

5-Due to the hot summer of 1904, World's Fair patrons skipped the usual hot drinks and went in search of cold refreshment, including iced tea.

 

6- By World War I, (1917) Americans were shopping for special tall iced tea glasses, long spoons, and lemon forks. By the 1930s, people were commonly referring to the tall goblet in crystal sets as an "iced tea" glass.

Speak Easy

 

7- The American Prohibition (1920-1933) made iced tea popular as an alternative to illegal beer, wine and liquor.

 

8- The switch from green to black tea came during World War II due to supply cuts. At the War's end 99% of Americans were drinking black tea imported from British controlled India.

 

9-South made it official. Tea was adopted as the Official Hospitality Beverage by State Bill 3487, Act No. 31 of the 111th Session of the South Carolina General Assembly on April 10, 1995.

 

'Sweet tea.'

 

10- Outside the South, tea is not usually sweetened. Most Southern restaurants serve the smooth, chilled drink sweetened.

Country Star Brad Paisley Tweeted:

'Attention Los Angeles, adding sugar to iced tea AFTER it is served does not make it sweet tea. It only makes it crunchy tea. Time to learn.'

 

 

 

Warning- Half Of All Marketing Does Not Work!

 

Figuring out which half is the key. 

To step forward and enter the arena of marketing is to take a big leap into what can be a complex world. 

 

I use these few questions to help simplify my marketing tasks and help me get on the right track.

 

The first question is the overriding one and colors all the rest- What is my goal? Another way to put this and to creatively get rolling is to ask- what's the purpose of this marketing effort? 

 

Purpose always gives you a place to start. So why advertise at all? To sell tickets, products, services, generate income, help people, increase profits, and so on. 

A purpose hierarchy is a huge help in getting a sense of meaning.

 

The next question is - what is unique about this particular issue? Of all the other issues that are similar to this one, what is totally unique about it? If you stay with this question there is something that will reveal itself. For example, you might be marketing for a local sports arena. There are similar venues all over the world but something local about this one makes it unique. A special team plays there, the location, other factors contribute to a special appeal. Look for it and take a few notes for later. 
 

A third question is this- what group of people will receive this marketing message? When consiering who, what, where, when, why, and how? This one is the who part of the equation. Ask yourself what group of people are ideally on the receiving end of this message and what will it mean to them? Put yourself in their shoes and consider what would be worth while to them. 

 

Moving along we come to the fourth question that will help determine the marketing approach. What system will naturally develop that forms a domino effect causing one thing to change another with possible synergistic results? All activities happen inside a wider complex. When you are able to consider some of them you can think about it from different perspectives and weigh the varying possibilities. Taking a few minutes to do this kind of exercise will often give you good ideas and insights.

 

Fifth question to ask yourself as a marketing project starter- How will this be better down the road? What things will naturally occur that will help this idea build in a few months, a year, or two? How will it evolve? What kinds of additions could improve the idea as time goes on? Is the idea even one that lends itself to improvement in the future?

 

Question six is this- How will limiting the information on this project actually help? At what point will data collection become redundant? Most projects have way more data than needed to get started. It is most often better to simply start the ball rolling and see if it gets traction. So limit the information gathering and just get started.

 

And the seventh question is this- When this marketing project is up and running , what would have been the next version of it? That often reveals the better choice so you can just skip over to the next solution and get a head start. 

These marketing questions will help give you a start on most any project and help round out the steps in a plan that will work to reach your goals. 

 

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