Six Degrees of Panera Bread

The game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" was started because people like finding arbitrary links between things. It's actually just how the human brain works; it sees things and links them together. While things like the food and music industry may not seem to have much in common, I am going to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to bring the two together.

First Degree of Bacon

I've actually never played Six Degrees, but I think I already named a starting and ending point so here goes nothing. We have the food industry: a place where I have been involved in since I was old enough to hold a job, where the profit margins are smaller than perceived,and companies do whatever they can to increase those profit margins...or so we think.

Second Degree of Bacon

My second job and first stable job was at Panera Bread. Upon moving to Montana, I was surprised to find Panera had not made its way here yet. For my Montana friends and any others who have not eaten at a Panera, Panera is a quick casual dining restaurant. The restaurant is divided into two sections a bakery and a cafe. The bakery side sells an array of sweets and breakfast items like cookies, brownies, bagels and quiches. In addition, they also sell coffee shop drinks (not to mention the best chai tea). The cafe side sells soups, sandwiches, and salads. Panera's real claim to fame was the introduction of a quick casual dining experience.

Third Degree of Bacon

As a former employee of Panera I know they have always tried to better the community surrounding them. At the end of the day Panera puts all the bakery items which have not sold and places them in a bag for collection the next morning by a local charity. Lately Panera has raised the bar on community involvement by setting up "Panera Cares" cafes across the United States.

Fourth Degree of Bacon

Panera Cares is set up to allow customers pay what they can afford of their purchase and volunteer to work off the rest of what is due.Why go to a Panera Cares instead of a local soup kitchen? Panera Bread wanted the ability to offer the "Panera Experience" to everyone. While soup kitchens have a general negative vibe when you walk in, Panera Cares offers the same environment any other Panera Bread would even down to the menu.

...the non-profit cafe has two goals. The first is to raise awareness about food insecurity. The second is to give those who aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from a sense of dignity

Fifth Degree of Bacon

The biggest splash I can recall of a "pay what you can" business model was when Radiohead released their seventh studio album, "In Rainbows", in 2007. Against the advice of their label, Radiohead released "In Rainbows" to the general public on the internet. The entire album was free to download for three months before hard copies were sold in stores. While on the internet the album generated more money than their previous album, "Hail to the Thief", and out sold both Hail and"Amnesiac" in total sales.

Sixth Degree of Bacon

Once available in stores, "In Rainbows" debuted number one on both the US Billboard 200 and the UK Album Charts. Rainbows also precluded the most successful tour Radiohead has had to date. Not only did fans take notice of the true value of this album, but so did the music industry. Rainbows earned two Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Special Limited Edition Package. The last time Radiohead had won a Grammy prior to 2009 was three albums ago when they won a Grammy the Best Alternative Music Album for "Kid A".

Preliminary numbers for Panera Cares look promising. Maybe Panera will have the same impact on the food industry that Radiohead had on the music industry maybe not, but Panera's attempt to change perceptions of food security the same way Radiohead changed the music industry's opinion on downloading music is admirable.

How to Lose Customers and Alienate Yourself: When Segmenting Goes Too Far

The image above is a marketing campaign created for Dr Pepper Ten. The marketing department at Dr Pepper put together a campaign in an attempt to make their diet drink seem "more manly". As you can imagine, the campaign was a flop. Not only did the campaign get attacked as being sexist, but it upset the base customer of diet drinks- women.

Dr Pepper Ten is the prime example of losing customers and alienating yourself. Other companies have been much more successful at extreme segmentation without over alienating to the point of the product tanking.

When IKEA first started in 1953 their goal was to target the "young at heart" consumer. Many of their commercials would make fun of old "tacky" items that would be seen in your grandma's house.

Unlike Dr Pepper Ten, IKEA was successfull in correctly segementing their target market without alienating other potential customers. In a class I am taking we are having the same struggle so many marketers have had; how do you reach your target market without having other potential customers be repulsed?

Here's some background information on the project: Glidden has an exclusivity deal with Walmart i.e Glidden is the only paint brand Walmart can sell, but no one is aware Walmart sells paint and those who are aware doubt Walmart's ability to carry high quality paint. As a class, it is our job to produce a marketing campaign that will increase paint sales at Walmart within female Millennials, young renters, and baby boomers. Within the given budget in the spread of the demographic we decided to focus on the Millennials and young renters. Thus far we have struggled to find an idea that doesn't alienate the baby boomers, without coming off too boring/done before.

We do all agree on the headline- "Paint Fearlessly", but the class is generally torn over two headline ideas. We have a "Face Your Fears" campaign and an "It's Okay to Make Mistakes" campaign. While the "Face Your Fears" campaign has broad mass appeal, it is quite boring. Then we have a riskier "fail" campaign (can you see what side I'm leaning towards). The idea behind the "fail" campaign is the word after fail will change in every advertisement i.e Fail Beautifully, Fail Gracefully, Fail Smarter etc, and a picture will go with the headline that shows the painter even if some kind of mistake is made while the project can still came out beautifully.

Because the class is exactly 50/50 on the two campaigns I pose the question to you, what do you think about the word fail? Do you think the use of the word fail will alienate the baby boomers? Do you have any suggestions on how we could make the idea more market friendly?

Thanks for reading and an advanced thanks for giving me insight

Confessing to Oprah Solves Everything Right?

I may be alone in this, but I want to like Lance Armstrong. I really do. LiveStrong, a charity spearheaded by Armstrong until late 2012, has raised $470 million dollars in cancer research. Those numbers alone are pretty fantastic. Those numbers paired with other "accomplishments" have led me to this conclusion: Armstrong is not an overall bad person. He has done some really amazing things and doping or not, being a profesional athlete takes a lot of hard work. So, I will say again (and I don't think I'm alone in this) I really want to like Lance Armstrong, but he sure is making it very hard right now!

This blog post is a response to an article put out by The Atlantic "Rebranding Lance Armstrong: Marketing Pros' 6-Step Recovery Plan" all in all a good article and an easy read, so if you want to read it before continuing on with my post feel free, but I will give you a brief summary now: In order for Lance to recover from the web of lies he has created he must follow a 6 step recovory plan. 1.) Confess to Oprah 2.) Confront what he has done- or lay low 3.) Take up a new charity 4.) Don't rat anyone else out 5.) Make peace withe the media 6.) Distance yourself from LiveStrong

There's nothing new under the sun. Lance Armstrong is not the first brand, public figure, or even athlete to pull at the public's heartstrings in an attempt to get back in our good graces. As the article we all just read points out the first step to getting the public's attention is to sit on the infamous couch and cry it all out there. When I say cry it all out there, Lance better be crying on that couch more than I did for the 2 hours and 37 minutes of my life that was Les Miserables, because if the public can't physically see you're sorry no one will think you are.

The main problem for Lance Armstrong is he is already instead of pulling a Tylenol he went Toyota. In crisis situations there are "3 V's" of which you can embody: Villain, Victim, or Vindicator. Lance, like Toyota, has thrown himself in the Villain role. By spinning a web of lies for so long and creating unjustly accused persona Lance has lost the ability for people to see him as the victim of team bullying. The only option left for him is to move from his current role into the role of vindicator. That is the re-branding which needs to take place for the public to trust him again.