Marketing Spoonful

I’m not sure how often this occurs, but it’s an interesting phenomenon that what we would call brand standards for franchises are sometimes blatantly ignored. Signage is a tough one to get over on, but you and I both know there are a lot of unapproved coupons and brochures floating around out there.
But tonight, I [...]

Tags: 7-Eleven, brand standards, food marketing, food marketing blog, franchise, ICEE, Icy Drink, Merchandising, Slurpee

Creating a new brand identity for yourself is easy. Creating a new brand image? Not so much.
That’s because of an important, yet subtle difference between identity and image:
Identity is WHO you are. Image is HOW you are perceived.
To state it another way, your brand identity is HOW you want to be perceived, while your image [...]

Tags: Branding, Dippin' Dots, food marketing blog, Hormel, Hyundai, identity, image, Kia, Lexus, marketing strategy, Tyson

After posting a client’s account of going to CiCi’s Pizza and tripling the toppings on his pizza by robbing from two other slices, I got a nice comment from an official at the company. You can read it below. It was very cordial and essentially pointed out that CiCi’s provides ample toppings and invited me [...]

Tags: CiCi's, food marketing blog, pizza

I heard a really funny story the other day. I was teaching a course on the basics of starting up a business to a class of about 10 people. Now, when I teach this class, I like to use the example of starting a pizza restaurant to illustrate how to locate, price, create a product, [...]

Tags: buffet, CiCi's, Domino's, food marketing blog, getting your money's worth, Papa John's, pizza, Pizza Hut, value

Increasingly, we’re seeing advertisers tapping into the core elements of health and beauty that stand for true happiness to consumers.
We saw Dove do it by encouraging women to unlock the power of their inner beauty. Now Danone is using celebrity spokeswomen to demonstrate a lovely connection between taste enjoyment, nutrition, digestive health, beauty and happiness.
It’s [...]

Tags: activia, beauty, food marketing blog, health, jamie lee curtis, martine mccutcheon

I like to watch the Family Guy of an evening and enjoy some snacks. Tonight, it’s Diet 7-Up with Trail’s End  Butter Light Popcorn (it’s tasty stuff, and 70 percent of the proceeds go to the Boy Scouts).
While watching, I saw a commercial for Spangles, a regional burger joint with an eclectic menu that includes [...]

Tags: cinnamon roll, food marketing blog, local food, Spangles, Yoder

It’s nice to actually watch and listen to a band for a change during halftime of the Big Game. Usually I have to endure all the falderol and garbage that goes with the over-hyped football championship game.
The Who sound as good as ever. And how cool is it to hear half of South Florida scream: [...]

Tags: 1985 bears, big game, Bud Light, Coca-Cola, Coke, Doritos, food marketing blog, gary patterson, Hyundai, Marketing, Miller High Life, patterson burk, super bowl, wendell

If you’re not sure what to do next to make your food product line more competitive, consider adding a tier.
It might make sense to add a lower tier. It might make more sense to add a higher tier. Which way you move depends largely on the gap in the market, consumers’ willingness to pay and [...]

Tags: brand extension, Crisco, Ernest and Julio Gallo, Mercedes, product line extension, product tiers, Yellow Tail

I’m not here to defend Tiger Woods. I’m also hacked off at Mark McGwire. And Lance Armstrong wasn’t very nice to his first wife.
Many of the guys who are heroes to me for one reason or another fall short in other areas.
I was reminded of this tonight as I watched Cake Boss on TLC. Buddy [...]

Tags: blog, employee relations, Food, food marketing blog, human resources, Marketing

In the past month, newspapers and televisions have been full of Tiger Woods’ indescretions and subsequent domestic difficulties. In an earlier post I extolled Tiger’s character when it comes to losing (http://marketingspoonful.com/?p=1152). Time will tell if he comes out of this one well. It will also be interesting to see if he uses a straightforward, [...]

Tags: crisis communication, crisis management, food marketing blog, public relations, spin