Marketing Spoonful

I got a warm feeling today when I watched Steve Williams and Tiger Woods share a sandwich on the seventh hole of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
It was precious. Steve took the sandwich, which was wrapped in a small, clear plastic bag out of Tiger’s golf bag, let Tiger take half the sliced sandwich and then [...]

Tags: food marketing blog, golf commercial, sandwich, Steve Williams, Tiger

Periodically, I do a search on the Web for “food marketing,” and it’s always a little disappointing to find so many people decrying the food industry’s attempts to get customers. Most often, the venom is spat in the direction of companies marketing to children.
Quite frankly, the abdication of responsibility on the part of consumers is [...]

Tags: blog, consumer concerns, Food, health, Marketing

You might remember this commercial as the one that started the wonderful series of commercials reminding us that the overwhelming majority of student-athletes do not go on to play sports professionally.
I think what this ad campaign teaches us is that you can take your brand back when it has been hijacked by the media and [...]

Tags: ad campaign, emotional marketing, NCAA

I’m reading a fantastic book right now called Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin. It goes like this: the way you’re doing things now is like a bowl of meatballs. It might not be as effective as you’d like, so you try to apply the new ways of doing things: blogs, Facebook, outsourcing. These are the [...]

Tags: Meatball Sundae, new marketing, permission marketing, Seth Godin

Wal-Mart has redone its Great Value brand look and feel, and I think it’s just the grooviest.
It’s hip, but simple, just like value-conscious shoppers with style would like.

I think Wal-Mart aficionadoes would agree that it’s a bit reflective of Target’s Archer Farms brand.
Still, it seems appropriate that Wal-Mart would choose now to raise the profile [...]

Tags: brand revamp, Great Value, Wal-Mart

You probably know this by now, but the peanut is an amazing legume. (It’s not actually a nut. Whatever.) In any case, American farmers produced 2.5 million tons (yes, tons) of the little goobers last year alone. And the bumper crop was just in time for the recession because peanut butter sales are up and [...]

Tags: blog, Food, Marketing, Mr. Peanut, peanuts, snack commercial

I met these guys at the National Restaurant Association show last year. I think they have a really great idea for a line of clothing made just for chefs with a little bit of attitude.
Their slogan is: Sharp knives and fire. (What better reason?)

Check them out at http://rebelchefapparel.com/. It’s a really sharp Web site filled [...]

Tags: biker chef, chef apparel, Rebel Chef

Well, MIller Lite may or may not be reaching its core audience with the commercial cited earlier today in this blog, it’s definitely causing a stir among connoisseurs and homebrew geeks.
Mike Pomranz at Slashfood thinks Miller Lite should stick to telling people that it’s just Miller Lite and nothing else.
Tom Cizauskas of yoursforgoodfermentables cautions Miller Lite [...]

Tags: beer commercial, beverage, blog, Food, Marketing, Miller Lite, triple-hops

We’ve made much of how consumers want to know where the food comes from and how it’s made. Sometimes we’re talking about natural and organic consumers, but others need to watch out for certain ingredients that might be harmful to them.
While watching KU play North Dakota State today, I saw a new Miller Lite commercial [...]

Tags: beer commercial, blog, Food, Marketing, Miller Lite, process innovation, storytelling

When a new product or service hits supermarkets, it doesn’t take long for everyone else to follow suit. That’s the thing about what Clayton Christensen calls “sustaining innovations.” They are easily imitable and difficult to break out of.
It’s the reason so many hard drive manufacturers went out of business. They were sustaining an innovation trend [...]

Tags: blog, Creativity, disruptive innovation, Food, Innovation, Marketing, Supermarket, sustaining innovation