THE office is like a teenager's bedroom: piles of papers and books all over the floor and desk, with a path from door to chair cutting through the chaos. Colorful and vibrant Jones Soda bottles are everywhere. A cartoonish pastel of several human skulls by controversial artist ManWoman adorns the far wall. This is the office of a CEO?

Yep.

This is where Peter van Stolk, CEO and founder of Seattle-based Jones Soda Co., spends his day. Like the office, like the company, the raw and edgy van Stolk is himself a statement: shaved head, skateboarder clothes and killer instinct that has brought salmon-flavored soda into the inventory, along with photo contests. The most popular pictures earn a place on bottle labels. The company boasts an initial public offering, national distribution and recent partnerships with Barnes & Noble and Target stores.

Van Stolk adopted a unique approach to his beverage line from the start. As a result, Jones Soda has been rewarded with steadily growing success. No hidden meaning? reads the label on the back of a Jones Soda bottle. No billion dollar ad campaigns.? Instead, it has always been van Stolk's goal to put the brand into the hands of the customers, give ownership of the products to the consumers and make them feel like it is their soda.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The company began in a church basement in Edmonton, Alberta, where van Stolk cut and sold fresh fruit. He also made and sold root beer from concentrate before getting into beverage distribution. Van Stolk created Urban Juice and Soda Co. Ltd. and eventually decided to manufacturer his own line of beverages. From there, the Jones Soda brand was born, with six brightly colored flavors: Orange, Cherry, Lemon Lime, Strawberry Lime, Raspberry and Grape.

There were plenty of naysayers along the way, including his father, who wanted him to earn a college degree. But van Stolk didn't listen to those people who said he couldn't do it, and he didn't worry too much about what other beverage companies were doing. "That's the thing about being an entrepreneur," says van Stolk. "Entrepreneurs say, 'I'm not going to listen to you.'"?

The next step was to take the company to Seattle, to be closer to the U.S. market, where 90 percent of Jones Soda products are sold. Then he renamed the company. "Urban Juice and Soda didn't have as much meaning as Jones did,"? he says.

From the very first soda release, in 1996, Jones Soda has printed photos submitted by consumers on its labels. And now the bottle caps feature quotes submitted by consumers. Besides this constant exchange with its customers, a target audience of 12- to 24-year-olds, the company sponsors athletes in a number of sports, including surfing and skateboarding. Two years ago the company also launched a MySpace-like music website called MyjonesMusic.com, where people can display pictures and showcase their musical talents.

You won't see much of Jones Soda on this website. 'That's not our marketing strategy,"? says van Stolk. The goal of the site isn't to promote its soda products but to maintain the brand as relevant to its audience. "If you look at the DNA of MySpace, it's a social kind of space: post photos, post music.... You'll see that we have a similar structure, a similar DNA [to MySpace.com] that is not like our competitors."?

LOSING CONTROL

One big difference between Jones Soda and its competitors, says van Stolk, is control. Jones Soda gives much of it away when it comes to branding ideas. "I think what we're also very good at doing is not trying to do what our competitors do." While Coca-Cola and Pepsi duke it out with billion-dollar ad campaigns persuading consumers to buy their products, Jones is quietly establishing a genuine dialogue with its audience.