A recent USA Today article brings to light the growing trend of referring to food products as “artisan, ” with the number of “artisan” products in store shelves having doubled in the last four years. The word “artisan” implies that a product has been created with care by a craftsperson, yet these seem to be mass-marketed and -produced products. (Nevermind the fact that the  ”artisan” refers to to craftsperson, while “artisanal” refers to the product itself.)

Now, when a company sub-brands its product as “artisan,” as is the case with Tostitos chips or Domino’s Pizza, what does that say about the rest of their products? Seems to me that the flip-side to going up-market with a sub-brand is that you’re admitting some sort of deficiency in the rest of your products. At the very least, it raises questions…

- Are “regular” Tostitos not as tasty as their “artisan” counterparts?  
- If my “artisinal” Domino’s pizza is hand-crafted, what about the rest of their pizzas? 

Like “organic” and “natural” before it, “artisan”seems to be the next ill-defined food buzzword.

Today, the mark of a celebrity chef seems to be more about their branded merchandise than their restaurants. As more and more consumers turn to celebrity chefs not only for recipes, but for nutritional and lifestyle information as well, their credibility and brand equity continues to grow. The secret ingredient in the celebrity chef recipe however, is personality. Each chef has a signature style that sets them apart, from the “Domestic Goddess” Nigella Lawson to the hot-tempered Rocco Dispirito. The identities they create are often more important than the food they cook. Take for example, The Food Network’s series, The Next Food Network Star. The candidates are hardly professional chefs, and many are self-taught. Instead of culinary expertise, they compete for their own cooking show based on their unique personality and point of view.

“Celebrity” is no longer an adequate term for these culinary moguls. Their new name is “super chef”. Just look at “Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver’s empire. His show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, aims to educate kids and parents about healthy eating. He also has five restaurants, fourteen cookbooks, and an entire collection of products ranging from cookware and tableware to product lines including spices, meats, and everything in between. He even endorses his own line of wood fired ovens. Food critics are bothered by the lack of time these chefs actually spend in the kitchen, but fanatic followers clearly could care less, myself included. I’ve been coveting Giada de Laurentiis’ Target cookware line for weeks. Now, not only can I watch my favorite celebrity chef’s show, but I can emulate her in the kitchen as well. According to Nielsen, celebrity chef branded products and restaurant sales increased 12.6% in 2010. Additionally, cookbook sales rose by 5% in 2010, despite a 4% decline in total book sales. By defining not only their culinary style, but personality, charm, and authority, these chefs have risen to the status of movie stars and athletes. Forget Brad Pitt, I’ll take Bobby Flay any day.

We must understand fully from whence we came in order to plan for the future.

Click on the photo to experience more detail.

There are varying degrees of scope and sophistication in our wildly different projects and initiatives. Our work is passed to our clients, to internal teams, to executive management, to various partners and outside parties. The names of studies, reports, presentations, tools used in the process, task force teams, strategic plans, products in development, etc. do matter.

Names should be clear and communicative – presenting the topic but also the considering the audience. Names should not be overly technical or detailed. Names should be intuitive, parsimonious, and should be readable (and intelligible) “out loud.” But names should also hold up over time, regardless of how related issues change or evolve. Future researchers should be able to refer back to your work, referencing a name that still communicates something to them. It’s somewhat a lofty challenge, if you think about the implication of the choice of title. The goal is to strike a balance between communication and brevity – if the name simply “fits” in these terms, it will likely carry and communicate as desire.

There are, however, some campaigns that don’t work out so positively. Most recent was the Yoplait campaign asking people to send in lids from their yogurts and in exchange the company would provide a percentage to breast cancer awareness. Oddly enough the yogurt contained rBGH, a growth hormone linked to the list of possible causes of breast cancer. This ironic awareness event and others can be found on a website called “Think Before You Pink”, the site hoping to protect those who may mean well yet do not realize the ramifications of their do-goodery.

So do these cases fall into the realm of “any press is good press”? We are more aware of breast cancer than ever, but maybe we should focus a little more on prevention than spectacle.

I gave up reading books that can be found in the business/advertising/marketing section of the bookstore a while back. Most of the books you find in that section should have never been written in the first place: authors rehashing their previous work, self-help for the cubicle crowd, and whatever flavor of behavioral psychology is cool this month. I also posit that the original, interesting books in this section are likely to be rambling, 300 page tomes that would work better as 8 page articles in the New Yorker.

So, with few exceptions, the New York Times Business Bestseller List is dead to me. One of those exceptions is Rework, from the founders of 37signals (and the masterminds behind the best blog in the world, signal vs. noise).

Rework is essentially a collection of a hundred or so brief essays on how they do business. Anyone who has read their blog knows that they are feisty, irreverent, critical, and, in the end, brutally honest and usually right. The essays are no different. From advice on how to nurture office culture, to their thoughts on the futility of meeting and conference calls, they lay it all out there for the reader to do with as they please.

I have a strong suspicion that anyone who read this book and tried to follow their lead word for word would fail – miserably. Taken with a level head and grain of salt, however, the book is filled with provocations that will change the way they go about their life at work.

Here is a brief PDF excerpt from the book. Enjoy.

Today is the apparent unveiling of its advertising plan, which Twitter calls “Promoted Tweets” (although after searching for 30 minutes and not being able to find an ad I promptly gave up).  With Promoted Tweets, Twitter plans on incorporating advertisements into the Twitter live stream that relate to the personal search choices of its users.  The promoted Tweet advertising plan, however, differs from that of Google, Yahoo, and even Facebook, which all place their advertisements on the right side of their web page.  Unlike other social networking sites, Twitter only plans to display one ad at a time and plans to place the individual ads, which resemble normal Tweets, above the search results Twitter feed.

Advertisers will initially have to purchase key words that allow their ads to be displayed at the top of the Twitter feed when users use that key word in their searches.  Twitter is also in the process of developing a performance model called ‘resonance’ to determine pricing for its Promoted Tweets.  Similar to the pay per click model, Twitter’s resonance model will attempt to judge the impact of a particular ad by measuring the amount of times the ad is passed around, marked as a favorite, or how often users click the posted links on the advertisement, in order to determine price for ads.  The more demand and popularity for an ad, the longer it will stay around.

I was skeptical at first about Twitter’s Promoted Tweet’s plan, and not able to recognize the difference between a Starbucks Promoted Tweet and the normal tweets Starbucks puts out daily to promote its brand and products.  Why would a brand pay for something that it is already doing for free?  However, it is important to recognize the fluidity of Twitter.  Twitter is constantly being updated by its users, and as a result individual Tweets do not remain in one place for long.  The Promoted Tweet plan allows advertisers to display a message without fear of it being engulfed in the constantly updated stream of Tweets.  While Twitter’s advertising strategy is certainly unique, it is up to Twitter to convince advertisers, who will still have access to the promotional capabilities of a Twitter account free of charge, that its Promoted Tweets plan is worth the investment.

So you like the music video you are watching on the YouTube window embedded in her webpage? Well, just wait for Apple’s iTunes advertisement to pop up on the video screen and link you to the power of a one-click purchase of the mp3.  You don’t even have to stop watching the video.

Lady Gaga’s viral dominance is fed directly through her website LadyGaga.com. Here Gaga links viewers to her Twitter feed, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and iTunes store. It’s easy to navigate because the various media platforms are combined into one simple user experience. This, in turn, makes it easier for consumers to listen and purchase Gaga merch – from albums to a pair of stylish new earbuds – all while receiving personal updates from the pop queen via her Twitter feed. Here you can truly plug into Gaga’s world 24/7.

This social media cocktail has proved an effective elixir for Gaga and her fans, pushing the “Telephone” video into the spotlight before MTV or VH1 got a hold of it.  Now the artist has surpassed the record industry’s antiquated medium of delivery (video request shows or top ten countdowns). Social media cuts the power from the industry giants and puts it directly in the hands of the artists.

It is interesting to see how artists are embracing social media and turning it into venues for social marketing that directly and personally engage the artists with their fans.  Lady Gaga isn’t the only one who is taking advantage of these new platforms, she just happens to have figured out a way to unite them all in a successful global media campaign that not only reaches thousands of people, but allows them to feel a personal connection with her at the same time.

In this new, digital world, we’re beginning to move beyond this. Record companies have been pushing for more tiers of pricing on iTunes. Some television shows are free on Hulu. Some only show on premium cable and DVD. Once you eliminate the physical product, distinctions between perceived quality are able to be made.

It’s no longer about supply, demand, and the price of paper. It’s about quality and creativity.

Anyway. This article is worth reading.

It looks like Mircosoft has finally decided to combat this problem. Last month, Microsoft announced that they will be opening up retail locations in the fall and better yet, some of these stores will be placed next to or very near the Apple stores. This is an interesting strategy and should create stiffer competition between the two companies. Even with that being said, the consumer is the one that comes out on top with this change. The ability to walk into both stores, one after another will greatly benefit the shopping experience for those who are in the market.

Analysts predict that the shoe will be the next big trend in footwear despite its odd appearance. Others are more skeptical, likening them to Uggs, Crocs and Birkenstocks. The irony is that those who wear these “ugly” shoes swear by them.

A few years ago, Crocs were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Those who wore them thought they were comfortable and functional. Those who did not thought they were atrocious, to say the least. Apparently the negative attitudes prevailed, given Crocs Inc. recent trip toward bankruptcy. Considering that attitudes towards toning footwear reflect those surrounding Crocs, it will be interesting to see if toning footwear takes that same trip.