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Judging a book by its cover

As we near the Holidays, marketers look around to see what products are flying of the shelves, and why.  Since retailing is primarily a visual medium, the right packaging is critical. But louder is not necessarily better.  Today, many of our clients are opting for more understated options, a more elegant, minimalized aesthetic.  Some are going all-green to make a statement to their core…

We’ve recently returned from Obregon for a tour of the vineyards, and were glad to see everything seems to be on schedule… (more…)

Make it a sweet ’16

This January we reflected on some of the work we have been doing lately and how clients are evolving.  While marketing has become so much more complex, mainly due to the many trends we have posted about here, we also see the net effect as working to make 2016 a “sweet” year for the industry.   You can help make this the Year of the Superhero Marketer by keeping these points in mind: DISRUPTION…

This week, the National Retail Federation Foundation announced 25 individuals selected for honors,  “representing power players, disruptors, givers, influencers and dreamers who are changing the face of retail – many doing so behind the scenes.” (You can read about them on the link below this post)

For now we want to focus on one descriptor listed above: DISRUPTORS.  More than the others…

    At the start of the year, our clients typically ask us what we see in the areas of consumer marketing and media…a glance into the crystal ball, as it were.

This past year most of us were focused on enhancing digital and online outreach. We have seen this area at least double in activity in our campaigns over the past two years, as the desire to customize and measure the impact of…

    Wishing you and yours very Happy Holidays and a prosperous, marketing-filled New Year!

What the VA could learn from P&G

Delivery issues

We were first told this in Marketing 101 eons ago, but the message continues to be reinforced by experience after experience:  “If you are a marketer, you can market anything”.  This means you can typically apply the “Four Ps” (positioning, product, price, promotion) to just about any industry without really knowing much about it.

But things can and doget lost in translation, or…

Mislabeling and other misdemeanors

Not enough Wonderfulness?

This week “Big Red” (Coca-Cola) got a beating in the Supreme Court from no other than “little Red” or  (P♥M Wonderful) about juice that contained a lot less pomegranate than was claimed.  (You can read more about this case in the link below )

We admit we side with “David” here:  the husband-and-wife agribusiness team who took a strange fruit that was a real mess to eat…

Fruits and vegetables continue to post double-digit gains in the organic food and products sector. New numbers from the Brattleboro, Vt.-based Organic Trade Association show that 2013 organic sales of fruits and vegetables totaled more than $11.6 billion, up 15% from 2012. -

See video at: http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-enewsletter/pulse/Fruits-and-vegetables-continue-to-show-organic-gai…

Agri-tainment alive and well

Many farmers we talk to today, especially those located in more centrally-located and picturesque settings, have been talking about agricultural tourism, or what we call agritainment.

Turning all or part of a commercial ag business into a consumer-centric concern is not easy and it’s not for everyone, but it’s right for many.  Importantly, it’s a business that’s growing rapidly, thanks in large…

USDA funding for your projects

This week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA is devoting nearly $80 million this year to develop for local and regional food systems. “Consumer demand for locally produced food is strong and growing, and farmers and ranchers are positioning their businesses to meet that demand,” Vilsack said in a news release.

We are pleasde to hear this, as many of our most successful…

It’s what’s for dinner

We’re lovin’ it.  McDonald’s secret menu, that is.

This week, the business media was buzzing about two major restaurant chains that have this.  Starbucks is the other.  Maybe there’s more of them we don’t know about, but surely there’s more to come.

What it involves is what some of our foodie friends do at five-star establishments:  ordering off the menu.  But we’re…

Our go-to gal

In our continuous quest to find out what makes the supermarket shopper tick, we often rely on the go-to folks on this topic:  consumer affairs directors (or CADs, as we call them).

These are often the unheralded, way-back-in-the-corner office, female (mostly nutritionists or dietitians) at most major supermarket chains.  While category managers and buyers are great for telling you…

Is it time for the slaughterhouse?

We marketers are often faced with a quandary.  The client hires us to overhaul the company’s brand, then warn us, “But you can’t touch that!”

“That” can mean anything.  In some cases it’s the logo colors (unchanged since 1945), or where, exactly, the photo of the mascot dog goes on the label, or what we can say about Grandpa, the company’s founder.

In short, we…

We hear the description “Post Modern” increasingly coming up in industry chats today, especially from some of our colleagues emerging (a bit woozily…) from the _________Show in Las Vegas this week

We’re not talking about the lauded design styles of …

  Could it be more than 25 years already that the TV ad spot with the catchy theme “This is Not Your Father’s  Oldsmobile” (starring the still-slender William Shatner) became an instant classic? The phrase was quickly adopted in any context (“This is not…

Amazon: it's a jungle out there

Amazon Fresh Truck (Photo credit: adpowers)

Retail execs are abuzz with the recent announcement…