• by Larissa Faw , October 13, 2015

Last year, Rodale Book's vegan cookbook "Thug Kitchen" became an unexpected best-seller, eventually ranking as the third top-selling cookbook in 2014. The book's success was largely driven via word-of-mouth and social media. 

Now in order to promote the sequel, "Thug Kitchen Party Grub," Rodale is teaming with branded content company Process to try to replicate the success of the initial book. 

Playing off the video spoof that accompanied the first book, which was also in conjunction with Process and director Daniel Schechter, this second one skews the traditional ‘children at a lemonade stand’ script by having two foul-mouthed kids scorn a man for assuming their lemonade was “from concentrate” and not made from scratch. 

"The first film was a spoof of a pharma commercial that substituted an expectedly soft, euphemistic tone for one that is bold, obscene, and matter-of-fact—just like the cookbook," says Tim Perell, founder and president, Process. 

For the second film, Perell said, “We decided to go for something shorter and much simpler in execution, but with the same edge. By having such a recognizable scene as children at a lemonade stand, we were able to play with the audience’s expectations from the onset.”  

The project was a collaboration between the book's authors and Process. "We went through multiple ideas” with the authors says Perell. "They came up with the idea for the Lemonade Stand and then with Dan Schechter and Process, we tweaked the script over the course of a couple of weeks.” 

The video can be seen on the Thug Kitchen site, as well as on YouTube and Facebook. The latter two are where the last video received most of its views. The original on YouTube has been seen more than 1.5 million times. The sequel has yet to catch fire. In a week, the video has garnered around 11,400 views.  

In addition to this social initiative, Rodale is supporting the title through traditional channels and leveraging online interest to generate buzz.