Food and Drink
Marketing to Millennials: It’s Not What You Think
What’s the spin on millennials? How do you market to them? They don’t seem to like advertising or being “sold to.” Well, does anyone? When you’ve grown up in a world where the technology is always on, where you control your newsfeed and media, you ignore content that’s broadcast at you. They are a much more sophisticated…
Read MoreAmazon Go, a Store with No Checkout and No Customer Engagement
Amazon launched an amazing idea: a retail convenience store with no checkout. No cashier takes your money; you just get your stuff and walk out the door. As of now, you have to be an Amazon employee so you have access to the store, and the sensors know what you bought and charge your account.…
Read MoreWhy the Shake Shack brand isn’t Shaking it
HELLO Shake Shack was a really cool place. A few years ago I went to one in New York with my kid Zachary. It had reinvented the burger experience around a simple menu–well prepared food with higher quality ingredients–and they had beer and wine, which beckoned to parents like me. The developers of the concept had it down and expanded all…
Read MoreVegan Nuggets: Consumers Like Things Their Way
The world of the customization is moving quickly. It used to be easy enough to satisfy a consumer just by offering a standard brand in a category of food or product they like: you’re a beer drinker or a wine drinker, you eat meat or don’t. Now we can customize, specialize and provide almost exactly what each customer desires. The…
Read MoreAsk a 10-year-old what your brand is about
I was driving my 10 year old son to school one day when he piped up and said that MacDonalds was a company that sold crappy food that made people unhealthy. I asked him why. He said that’s what everyone at school says—his friends, teachers, everybody. You see, we don’t go to MacDonalds, but he still has…
Read MoreCustomers’ values: the new branding tool
You may be paying more but look at all these cool things Whole Foods is supporting! You get the feeling that the extra amount you may be spending is going to something worthy and good, something that you may be connected to or are committed to and is a part of your local community.
Read MoreBerlin Wall: Now the Center of Shopping
Branding Retail Experience in the City Center Berlin recently opened the Mall of Berlin. It’s virtually in the center of Berlin on the site of what was an enormous department store formerly owned by a leading Jewish retailer who was forced to sell to the…
Read MoreConsumers and the Changing Face of Retail
Walking into the local coffee house can’t be duplicated online. The desire to experience smells, sounds and the human interaction of a physical place— the desire of customers to “be some place” —is more visceral than the act of acquiring something needed.
Read MoreThe local retailer brand. Can Starbucks really be local?
So when a national chain moves into your neighborhood the local coffee shop need not freak out. They can leverage what they have and how they deliver it in a way that the customer recognizes and values.
Read MorePeets brand sells to a German conglomerate— is that all bad?
Peet’s Coffee and Tea just announced they are going private with a sale to German conglomerate Benckiser . But is this all bad? Is it a local company being swallowed up by a giant again? Not really—it’s an opportunity for stable growth and staying true to their values — what? How can that be? Extending and expanding value When…
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