In a
study released by Technomic, a
consulting and research firm for the food industry, Wendy’s beat out Burger
King as the second favorite fast food chain in the United States. According to
this study, in 2011 Wendy’s recorded sales of $8.5 billion, Burger King
reported $8.4 billion, and McDonald’s, the top fast food company, brought in
$34.2 billion. Burger King has responded with a new marketing campaign highlighting their new menu items including fruit smoothies, chicken strips, and a new garden salad. To promote these new menu items they looked to celebrities such as David Beckham, Selma Hyak and Jay Leno. Here are three of the new commercials below:
I think that this is a little too little a little too late, and I fear that Burger King is following in the trap of following McDonald's and falling in their shadow. All these items are available at McDonald's, are not actually as healthy as they are being portrayed, and are not specific to Burger King. If I were working in their marketing department and our goal was to revamp the menu, I would try to find an item that was not already being offered at my competitors restaurant.
I also don't think that offering these items will help them to increase their popularity. I think that they should go back to their roots, and go back to the idea that the customer is the "king" or wears the crown. I think they should be worrying about their image and their branding, and could use this opportunity to talk about the value of their product and how they put the customer first.
I wonder if this will make a difference in their sales this year, because I doubt this will make any type of long-term change for the company as a whole. It will be interesting to see the results. Watching these commercials doesn't make me think that Burger King has anything special in comparison to it's competition.
In honor of the 40th Anniversary of my father's favorite movie, The Godfather, Justin Moore, CEO and founder of Axcient, commented on how he learned how to be a successful entrepreneur from the movie. Lessons in Leadership from The Godfather
I personally worked for Mohegan Sun a while back, and I feel that they are an employment leader in Connecticut. They represent all 5 of the lessons learned from this article.
1. Build a powerful community. Mohegan Sun has made some pretty impressive partners in the entertainment world. They have three Michael Jordan restaurants, two Bobby Flay restaurants, they have a Jasper White's Summer Shack, and a Todd English's restaurant Tuscany. They also have a collaboration with the Blues Brothers, a local radio station and many more. Any time that they hold a large event such as an anniversary - they call upon these celebrities to not only attend but to help bring attention to Mohegan Sun.
2. Hold people accountable. They may not like to advertise it, but in the past few years they have suffered due to the economy. Instead of falling apart, they made some strategic moves and performed some small scale layoffs. They hold their employees accountable, and started at the top for the layoffs. In comparison to their competition in the state which had highly publicized wide scale layoffs.
3. Don’t get emotional. When the competition built a grand new casino, Mohegan Sun didn't backdown. Instead they also expanded their offerings at a more financially manageable scale. Bringing in a Margaritaville, poker room, water wall, and new casino. Now today they are not as financially burdened by their expansion - unlike the competition.
4. Be decisive. Mohegan Sun has strong leaders and depends on their management team to make important decisions.
5. Spend time with your family. As an employee at Mohegan Sun the work-life balance was always promoted. I never felt that I had to choose between family and work, and was hardly ever asked to take work home with me. They were also flexible about the hours that you worked - which I am sure varies by department. I was able to work events and then take comp. time at other times. Even during work they did team building events, instead of after hours, to encourage a healthy working environment. Mohegan Sun Culture
Lately in class we have been studying the four types of brands:
Fast Brand - get to the point, 1 2 3 Action
Strong Brand - represents the mother, valuable possession
Social Brand - you belong within the group, you feel safe and comfortable
Smart Brand - winner, cool and trendy
When discussing the differences in brands it is much easier to look at a specific type of companies. For example, fast food restaurants.
Fast Brand - Pizza Hut, you call or submit your order online, they deliver it immediately. They mainly have pizza and bread sticks, not many options.
Strong Brand - McDonald's - represents that it is all over the world, no matter where you are in the world you can find one and count on them to find a hamburger
Social Brand - Subway - you belong within the group, they try to emphasize the health benefits and reach out to the population with real life stories, such as Jared
Smart Brand - Starbucks would be a good example because they try to show that they are trendy and cool, above everyone else
One brand isn't better than another, they just use different tactics in their advertising efforts. When you look at your favorite brands what category would they fall into?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Somehow my math teacher coerced me into AP Statistics when I was in high school. The one thing I remember most from this course was, according to my teacher, "Statistics don't lie, people lie by using statistics." He repeated this constantly throughout the year, and tried to impress upon his young students that people can manipulate statistics to make any point they are trying to make. His philosophy has made me very wary of statistics.
The Generations 2010 study conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project, a project of the PewResearch Center, published their findings in a 29 page pamphlet on the differences of generations when it comes to their use of technology, specifically the internet. This study broke age groups into the categories of millennials, Gen X, Younger Boomers, Older Boomers, Silent Generation, and GI Generation (I find myself in the millennials category having been born in 1984.)
Some of the findings surprised me - for example, only 83% of millennials claim to use the internet for social network sites. Another statistic that they stated was the 80-89% of people in the millennials group uses the internet to find health information. However, across the board Health Info was something that the majority of all age groups are interested in. One other study they did was the changes in social network sites from 2008-2010, and what i found very interesting is how older generations' use of social networking jumped from 2008-2010. Gen X went from 36-62%, Younger Bookers jumped from 20-50%, Older Boomers from 9-43% and even the much older generations showed growth.
I was not surprised with the overall results that younger generations are using the internet more often and for more diverse uses. However, older generations are slowly beginning to catch up. I would be interested to find out the results of this in another 10 years!
On Tuesday night our entire class went to a lecture that was part of the CCSU "Living Room Lecture Program" presented by the author of Engine 2 Diet, Rip Esselstyn and his father Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. They joined us to discuss their research about the benefits of a plant based diet. Dr. Esselstyn studied the effect of eating a plant based diet in his patients with heart/cardiac problems, and found that when they changed their diet from a Western diet that includes dairy, meat and processed foods to a plant based diet they had astounding medical recoveries. He then studied this in patients with other medical issues such as diabetes or even leg pain and had similar results.
His astounding results changed they way he viewed western medicine. He instead focused on changing the lifestyles of the individuals instead of medicating them. He discusses the benefit of this in his movie Forks over Knives - a clip of the movie is below.
I love dairy, especially cheese, and any diet that completely restricts dairy would never work for me. When Rip Esselstyn was speaking he mentioned something that stood out to me - he said that no other mammal drinks another mammals milk other than humans. He said there was no reason we needed dairy after we stopped breast feeding as a child. He then said that the reason we like cheese so much is that it makes us feel good because it is an opiate. This statement shocked me - for sure if I were digesting opiates I would know right? So I decided to google this idea and see what I found. On a website called Dr. Bill DeanI found the following information:
Cheese is produced by acidifying milk and making a curd leaving the whey(watery protein) behind
The predominant protein in milk and therefore cheese is casein which if not completely digested will release in the gut as an opiate called casomorphin(BCM7)Opiates can produce a profound sense of pleasure
80% of cow's milk is casein Concentrated milk products(cheese, ice cream, milk chocolate) can have increased amounts of the addictive opiates or BCM7 proteins that link up to opiate receptors in the body, particularly the brain
Some interesting factoids
It takes 10 pounds of milk to make a pound of hard cheese(sour cheese)
It takes 3-4 pounds of milk to make one pound of milk chocolate A "chocoholic" is born
I think the best part of the entire presentation was learning about the powerful effects a plan based diet. I think when the Dr. was speaking about the results of his studies it really was powerful. How can you argue with the fact that his diet saved lives? I think it was a great awareness, and it makes me want to modify my diet to include more plants. Although I don't think I will ever be able to become a devout plant based vegan.
I feel bad writing this, but I truly think the worst part was at the very end when the very sweet and very enthusiastic Mrs. Esselstyn came on the stage to talk about how to incorporate more leafy greens into your diet. I think, for me personally, it was late in the evening and I really needed to get home. Her husband and her son had spoken so long that they took away from her time to speak, and she actually scared me with her suggestions. My friends know that I am a rather picky eater and some of her suggestions sounded more like rabbit food than normal human consumption. I feel like I was onboard with the diet before she started talking about how to prepare the food and her suggestions of eating dry oats. Although I am sure that if I went and had dinner at her house it would be delicious.
The other downfall I see with this diet, other than the obvious problem that I can't cook to save my life, is the expense all these "plants" will be. Unfortunately processed foods are much more inexpensive than if i were to purchase only healthy fruits and veggies - especially at with health food store prices. I wonder if this says something about our culture? The foods that are healthier for you are always triple the price of the unhealthy items.
Overall, I feel that this was an eye opening presentation and I will definitely be more conscious about what I put on my fork in the future.
I have just spent the past hour searching desperately to find my least favorite commercial - It is a commercial for NY Ink, a reality tv show. I hated it so much because it had sword swallowers and other vaudeville acts that were upsetting. Needless to say I can't find the commercial, but it really affected me at the time. Most commercials that I consider "bad" don't affect me as deeply as that one. Usually the commercials I think are bad, just are poorly made, not catchy, and I easily forget about them.
One company that markets in these so called bad commercials is Bob's Discount Furniture. However, I believe that their commercials are purposely bad - and inevitably get their name out there, and their brand. I am not a fan of their commercials, however I know in the back of my head every time I want to purchase a piece of furniture, and I want to purchase it at an inexpensive rate, I will first go to Bob's Discount Furniture. Here is a typical commercial:
This commercial is very low budget, but at the same time it gets its point across quickly. If I want something cheap, I will go to Bob's Discount Furniture.
Another low budget commercial that comes to mind when I am thinking about "bad" commercials, are the cheesy "Good ol' Tom's" commercials. This is a very similar style to the Bob's Discount Furniture, low quality with emphasis on the amount of money people will make when they bring their gold in to his pawn shop. Once again it is the owner who is in the commercial, not actors or professionals. Both commercials are focusing on how you should trust the owner, in attempt to bring them to the "first name basis" as if you know them personally.
Another ad that comes to mind when I think of "bad" commercials is the advertisement that was supposed to air during the Superbowl, but got pulled before it aired. This time I consider the ad "bad" because it seems to be in poor taste.
The "smushed" baby is in poor taste, and is probably why they pulled it before they aired it.
The question is - as much as I think these are "bad" commercials, do they catch my attention more than something that I would consider a "good" commercial? Therefore, does that mean these commercials are in a sense better than those "good" commercials - because I am remembering them and thinking about them? Therefore pollution or ingenious?
In the movie Art & Copy, they often referred to advertising as pollution. I often agree that the majority of advertising isn't entertaining, meaningful or artful. I decided to look and find some ads that I have enjoyed in the past few months. Surprisingly, I can't honestly say that I have purchased any of the items that they are advertising, at least not in the past few months, but I still enjoyed these commercials, and I remembered them after seeing them.
This ad reminds me of a colleague who would freak out whenever there was a spider nearby. He once had one of our disable children patients kill a spider for him when we saw one at work one day. This commercial is interesting and humorous. The characters are relatable, and I can almost see this happening in real life.
When I asked my husband what his favorite commercial was recently he immediately showed me this clip. Once again the commercial is humorous and relatable. How many times have you seen an older man wearing a ridiculous toupee? How many times have you, yourself worn something ridiculous to to impress someone? I look back at some of the outfits I have worn over the years - the stirrups and and headbands of the 80s, the low rise bell bottoms of the 90s, and in college in 03-07 I wore the too short mini skirts.
The m&m characters have taken on personalities all their own. I look forward to the new m&m commercials. At Christmas the commercials that say "He does exist" when Santa and the green m&m meet, or the "hungry eyes" commercial advertising the new pretzel m&ms. This new ad is once again humorous and includes loud popular music.
The Superbowl commercials have become very popular. Pepsi has used celebrities to make a splash in the Superbowl commercial arena. This year they seemed to take it up a notch including Elton John, Flava Flav, and Melanie Amaro (the X-Factor winner). The costumes were dramatic and the music was an important part of this advertisement.
Another commercial that was memorable from the Superbowl was the "Dog Strikes Back" selling the new Volkswagon. I guess, in looking at all the commercials I selected, I enjoy the commercials that are humorous. This one falls in that category, as well as it has catchy music to help tell the story.
I think all five of these commercials would not fall in the category of pollution - however, as I said they have not enticed me to go out and purchase any of the items that they are selling.
