11/22/11 posted by Jaime Borschuk, Interactive Design Manager Recipe by Amy Forster Bulauski
Amy posted this amazing looking smoothie on our Facebook page this week, and I knew we had to share it!
Green Smoothie w/Lemonmint spinach frozen blackberries frozen peaches banana pink lady apple almond butter hemp seeds Lemonmint metromint water
Amy didn't share quantities with us but, as she says on her website, "there's no exact recipe to follow and it can vary from day-to-day." I make smoothies fairly regularly and agree, you'll figure out how you like it. I would start with a handful of spinach, ~1/2 cup of each fruit, 1-2 tablespoons each of almond butter and hemp seeds, and 3 cups of Lemonmint water (there are 4 cups in a 16.9oz bottle).
7/8/11 by Jaime Borschuk, Interactive Design Manager
Did you know that Metromint is having a Summer Splash Sweepstakes? Since Metromint has no sweeteners or calories, and since the real mint offers a cooling feeling more refreshing than plain water, we consider it perfect for summer hydration. We can also easily picture our style savvy fans carrying a tote bag of cool stuff to the beach, including an iPod Touch, a Kindle, a Goorin Brothers Fedora, Ray Ban shades, Kiss My Face sunscreen, and, of course, ice cold Metromint.
One of the best things about bike racing is stage races—a succession of at least three races on consecutive days, where the winner is the rider with the lowest combined time from all the different races. For us amateur cyclists, it's like Tour de France, except shorter and slower!
The riding is definitely fun, but the real appeal of stage racing is that you get to spend a weekend (or more) hanging out with your teammates and meeting tons of fun, new people. Let me give you an example from a race a few weeks ago.
As a European living in San Francisco, it may come as no surprise that I don't own a car. The best part about this is that I have to carpool to races with no exceptions, and I have gotten to know many of my teammates pretty well as a result. Last weekend I picked up the awesome team car, Ella (a snazzy Honda Element!), along with teammates Tina and Johannes, and we drove (in style) to the Central Valley for the Madera stage race. Four bikes on top, one inside, three cyclists, and a bunch of wheels and other accessories all in one, blue-dotted car. Pretty sweet!
On Saturday morning, as we were loading our bikes for the first race, a man approached is in the hotel parking lot and exclaimed "Metromint is the best water! I love it!" to which we joked "Yup, we don't drink anything else. It's why we're so fast!"
But the conversation didn't stop there. The Man told us about his favorite trick for keeping cool in stuffy, dry, pollen-filled hotel rooms. He brings a humidifier with him on road trips to help with sleep apnea, and when he starts to notice the room dry out or heat up, he adds a little Metromint to the humidifier. So, not only does Metromint taste great, it also cools rooms, fights dryness, and cures snoring. No wonder he loves it!
The race weekend ended up being awesome: one 1st place, five top-10 finishes across the team, and a few new friends to boot.
7/14/10 by Jaime Borschuk, Interactive Design Manager
This year Metromint decided to make a 30 second video spot to run online as part of our summer ad campaign. While discussing possible ways to summarize the product in that small amount of time, we wondered what our fans would say.
We have great fans who say great things about Metromint, and we thank you for your endless phone calls and emails. All of your experiences with Metromint bring new excitement and associations to the brand that we can't always come up with on our own. In addition to making our own video about Metromint, we wanted to know what YOUR videos would look like, and so we ran The Metromint Very Short Video Contest, for which we challenged YOU to make a video about your experience with Metromint that was at most 25 seconds long.
For this contest we decided that we would review the entries ourselves and hand pick 5 that we felt fit the brand, told a story, and held entertainment value. From there, we would let YOU vote on which video would win the grand prize, a 32G iPad, and 2nd Prize, a $200 Apple gift card.
We were impressed and delighted by the quality of submissions we received. It was difficult to narrow the entries down to just 5 finalists— we wanted to change it to 10!— but those were the rules. Below is a playlist of our top 5. Congratulations to Colton Phipps, who was voted Grand Prize Winner, and Jonathan Mann, voted 2nd place!
You can see more entries on our YouTube Channel, and soon on the Video Jukebox I'm building for our homepage.
While the video contest was going on, we were busy building our own 30 second piece. It would be an animation! Instead of outsourcing this whole project to an agency, we decided to take a smaller scale approach.
Metromint Creative Director Jon Weber provided the initial concept and storyboards, and animator Alexander Tarrant brought the imagery to life. Metromint's Marketing Coordinator Jenn Chan, Founder Rio Miura, and summer temp Justin Sedor (in this order in the photograph to the right) worked together to develop and mix the music and sound effects that would accompany the voiceover we produced with the help of Voice One.
And the final product? Here it is! Our 30 second Metromint piece is now airing on Hulu for the next few weeks, along with select user generated content from the video contest. We like how our piece turned out, and we hope it succeeds in introducing our story.
This Halloween, Metromint held an online costume contest for our fans. We were happy to receive a number of costume photos from enthusiastic fans and, though difficult, we narrowed it down to one winner: Jenikah. Jenikah spent a week making this beautiful peacock costume by hand! These photos show the costume modeled by Megan Jade:
The Metromint office also held a costume contest among employees. Founder Rio Miura and President Scott Lowe awarded the grand prize of 1 paid day off to Jenn Chan, who wore a Bruno inspired Velcro suit that kept her warm, uncomfortable, and sticking to everyone and everything all day long. Yours truly was declared the 2nd prize winner of a $75 gift certificate to Whole Foods for my Alladin Sane-era version of David Bowie's alter ego Ziggy Stardust, which Metromint President Scott Lowe deemed as "solid." Honorable mentions went to Kiyoe Nakazawa's cheerleading costume, and Tessa Phosrithong's Vampire costume. Go team!
5/13/09
by Michele Thorne, Wellness & Outreach Director
A few weeks ago Jaime, Jenn, and I decided to get out of the office for our Monday morning team meeting. We took a field trip around the corner to Brickhouse restaurant and met over a light breakfast.
The sun was shining beautifully through the big windows and we sat right up front to bask in it. As we were discussing our current projects, I looked up to see three beautiful paintings on the wall, one with a Metromint bottle painted in as one of the subjects. The paintings were created by Hiroko Sakai. She is native to Japan, but lives here in SF now. I decided to interview her via email.
MT: How long have you been painting? HS: I’ve been painting since I can remember, but my professional art career started in the early 1990’s. In the beginning of my career, I forced myself to “never say I can’t”. Whatever project I got, the first thing I would say is “OK. I can do it!”.
MT: What brought you to San Francisco? HS: Well, I was in Japan working when I had a medical condition that landed me in the hospital. During that time, I met a man (who was from America) and he encouraged and supported my healing. We had a whirlwind romance and we married in Japan. Shortly after, I moved to San Francisco. I was pregnant when I moved here and it was a huge change. My relationship became abusive and I knew I had to leave. I went to the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco with my 4 month-old baby, which saved my life.
MT: How did you get back to painting after that? HS: I began drawing to sweep out my stuck emotions which had piled up inside. At first, my sketches were colorless, and then one by one, they slowly came back to my paper. My art was healing.
MT: What was your inspiration to include Metromint in your painting? HS: I always enjoy doing something fun and playful in my paintings; adapting edgy and/or traditional elements with things that people feel common or familiar with. The painting you saw in the café is called “Mystery” and the inspiration was a parody of the famous statue “Venus de Milo”. I thought it would be fun to add some modern imaginations on her lost arms. Then, I thought Metromint is one of the things that represents a modern, fashionable girl’s life.
I would like to thank everyone who submitted a poem or video to us for this contest! It was hard for us to narrow it down to 3 winners, so we chose 3 written haikus and 2 videos. Without further ado, here they are:
Cooling sensations
Metromint tickles your tongue
No sweeteners, just love
--Charlene Jennings
Sorry, Valentine.
Metromint has won my heart.
I sip. I sigh. Love!
--Patricia Gilmore
On Valentine's Day
Fill my bath with Metromint
Then leave me alone.
--PF Dumanis
2/5/09 by Michele Thorne, Wellness & Outreach Director
Seriously, this is the BEST part of my job. Every now and again, we will get a stellar email, phone call or letter from a Metromint fan letting us know how they feel about Metromint, and we remember why we do what we do. Today there was an exceptional example, and I am compelled to write about it.
A few weeks ago I got an email from Jirod Greene, lead singer of Austin, TX rock band The Ars Supernova. Jirod shared with me his love for Metromint, but that's not what got me intrigued. He mentioned that his band founded The Soundwave Organization to donate proceeds from live shows and album sales to worthy causes. The Soundwave Organization, through A Glimmer of Hope and H20 Africa, has already donated enough money to build a well that supplies clean water for a village in rural Ethiopia. Currently, The Soundwave Organization is raising college tuition money for passionate high school artists and musicians living in Austin, TX. How awesome is that? Wait, there's more.
Today, I got an email from Jirod with a link to his blog. I was again humbled and delighted to know how he feels about Metromint! His blog is thoughtful, funny and informative, and we deeply appreciate the love! Check it out, especially the video.
After sharing this blog with the office today, I finally got Jirod on the phone and talked to him for a bit. I had to personally thank him and also find out what is the meaning of his band’s name. He explained that the word “ars” is Latin for art, and that a "supernova" is a star that explodes and becomes extremely luminous in the process. Essentially, it dies and is reborn. Hence, “The Ars Supernova”, according to Jirod, means “the rebirth of art”. The message they want folks to know is that they are creating music “outside of the ordinary”. In my humble opinion, they are not only creating music outside of the ordinary, they are raising the bar musically and socially! Thanks for sharing your music and passion about your “must haves” with us Jirod but, most importantly, to you, David, Ross, Matt, Alejandra and Deitrich: shine on y’all!