Your Four Food Groups

Yesterday, our latest 12 Most post was published.  Loads of people retweeted and shared (thank you all) and the awesome Chris Westfall left some comments as well.  It was his comments and my subsequent thoughts which I'd like to share with you today.  I know you're busy but, if you've a moment, I would ask that you read the original post and the comments if you've not already done so.

Do you have a balanced diet?

There's no need to tell me, the Idea Chef, you're ovo lacto vegetarian but you'll eat bacon among friends and can't stay away from grandma's brisket.  This is a question about your marketing diet.

There's a reason why my mom wants to make sure I've had milk, fruits, veggies and protein.  She wants me healthy.  So, too, with your marketing diet.  Not paying attention to your diet isn't good for your marketing (nor your business) health.

Here's what I mean by a balanced diet (see below).  Of course, everyone's got a different view of things.  This is just my take.

Be a marketing nutritionist.

Your business relies on consistent balanced ingestion and digestion of vitamins, minerals and a host of other goodies.  When we fail to take these four marketing food groups into holistic consideration, it's not healthy.  If we're paying too much attention to Competition and not enough to the other three, for example, we're missing key elements in making sure our marketing system is working properly.

It doesn't matter if Competition is first to market with something if you know it to be non consistent with your Value Proposition, your Product or your Customer needs/wants.  And yet, we often make this mistake of not looking at the big dietary picture with the net result of confusing ourselves (and worse, our customer) with doing things that deviate from who we are holistically.  And that does not make anyone healthy.

What's your food strategy?

These four business food groups must work in harmony with one another with each element influenced by one or a combo of the others at all times.   Think of this holistic view as no different from, complementary to or even influencer of your SWOT analysis that you do for new product development, marketing strategy development, etc.

So, I ask you, what's in your marketing diet?  How do you feed your marketing to make sure all of the systems are working properly?  Please share below and, if you've enjoyed this, please share with friends.

Parissa Behnia
Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com
678Partners.com
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Garrett's Popcorn and Culture

Have you heard of Chicago's Garrett's Popcorn?  If there was ever a time to have a smell-o-video widget, it's now.  The below video from FoodTV is about 3 minutes long but it gives you an appreciation for Garrett's history and process.

Garrett's is so popular that there is ALWAYS a line snaked outside of each shop.  If you've lived or visited here in the cold of winter or in the most humid of summer, you know that that is a loyal fan base.  It's an excellent problem to have.

You've got to admire the discipline, commitment and the pursuit of popcorn excellence down to the special moisture sensitive kernels.  I could write another post about focus like I did for Intelligentsia but today I'd like to talk about something different.

"It's just popcorn," she said.

So, my cousin H. visited from Paris this past week. Many things were crossed off the tourist checklist: boat tour, libations and views at John Hancock Building's 95th, museums, etc.  As we were walking on Michigan Avenue, the luscious smell of caramel caught her attention and she asked where it was coming from.  I explained it was Garrett's and showed her the line.

It was unfathomable to her that popcorn would draw such a devoted following hence her comment above. I tried to describe the what and why of it but I wasn't successful though she believed me when I said it was delicious and instantly addictive. She speaks 3 languages so there wasn't a language barrier. I realized that this was a blog post in the making.

How do you ignite cultural passion?

Not unlike expensive coffee, heated seats or the microwave oven, someone has to be taught or conditioned to want to stand in line a long time for a bag or tub of popcorn. This teaching and conditioning becomes a little bit more difficult when cultural textures or differences come into play.

Let's face it: a new culture is a foreign language. Expressions, jokes from old television shows and yes, food, can be a foreign language and awfully confusing to newbies whether they are new to a job, city, country or brand. And still, I see all of us making the same mistake over and over. We make them figure it out on their own and don't ever consider that we lose power over our narrative when we do that.

Fish or cut bait.

This expression means "you're in or you're out" which is what we do to those new to us. And it's also fitting for what I'm trying to convey in this post because it means nothing to a) people who aren't fisherman or b) people who have never heard it before.

Make a friend and reclaim your narrative.

Why talk about this at all?  I just sat through another great #cxo chat featuring Vala Afshar, CCO of Enterasys with the topic of how businesses can improve customer communications across channels.  As usual, it was a fast paced and edifying chat.

But I don't remember talking about how you check for "culture" when you monitor customer communications across channels.  I wish I had asked the question because I believe that if we're more sensitive to those who are newbies to us and cultural newbies, we'd all be better off in the short and long terms.

What say you?  Please share below and share with friends.

Parissa Behnia
Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com
678Partners.com
LinkedIn
Twitter

P.S. Wanna know how vast the fan base is?  See this video for Halle Berry's joyful embrace of a Garrett's tub.