Holiday marketing may be more ubiquitous than ever, given the ease of publishing content on social media, and yet doing it well has not gotten easier. Social media and digital marketing have increased expectations that brands will do something for any given holiday: after all, everyone else is. Yet the prevalence of these holiday promotions,… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Service: Writing
Pet Food Brand Development: Dog + Duck (Commander)
After a lot of hard work, we’re proud to announce (and show off a bit of) our partnership with a Midwestern pet food manufacturer and, a bit farther south, Duck Commander. We’ve worked on this dog food (and treats!) project from its infancy, and while there’s still more work to be done, here’s an overview… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
On Brand Gestalt: Making a Brand More than Human
I’m a nerd. I grew up with a Nintendo controller in my hands; I’ll stay up until the small hours to catch Vincent Price or Hammer Films horror marathons; and my personal geography is dotted with mountains of unread books—on topics ranging from 17th century Dutch painting to the history of punctuation. I’m especially a… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Look Good, Feel Good, Brand Good (Valuing a New Website)
We regularly say that a company’s website, designed and developed correctly, is more than a marketing tool; rather, it’s a brand asset that benefits all marcomm efforts and increases profitability for years to come. Typically, we develop websites as a result of or in tandem with a brand identity project (logo, tagline, positioning, etc.), though, as… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Nutrition + Convenience + Coziness = Huga
We’re excited and proud to announce the launch of Hůga. Several months ago, we partnered with (the now-named) Hůga Foods to develop their brand. After an initial conversation about family recipes and gluten-free nutrition, we got to work on the following: • Market assessment• Brand positioning strategy• Brand narrative• Brand name• Product naming• Logo• Wrapper… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Marketing and the Meaning of “Food”
A recent essay in the food magazine Lucky Peach points to one of the reasons that food marketing can be uniquely challenging: the hurdle of our deep-seated human tendency to give the word “food” a very specific definition, which we then endow with incredible emotional meaning. That’s a little abstract, so if you’ll excuse me… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
The Trouble with Marketing Natural Foods
It’s widely recognized that consumers are seeking more “green” options, from organic produce to low-footprint proteins. Retailers are stocking more of these products, making the sector one of the fastest-growing areas of the food business for farmers, distributors, and retailers alike. It’s a good time to be selling anything perceived to be green, and companies… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Regulatory Compliance: from Meh to Marketing
Food Safety Modernization Act Since the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law in 2011, the food industry has been faced with the prospect of greatly increased safety and transparency regulations. Today, those changes are still being rolled out—from much more frequent FDA inspections to stricter requirements for produce—and some regulations are still… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
A Brand in a Bow Tie
During my teenage years, I worked at a local frozen custard stand. Our uniforms consisted of button downs and bow ties. We punched in with paper time cards. Orders were taken and called out in paperless fashion. It wasn’t quite Mayberry, although it did have a distinctive charm marked by nostalgia. Coupled with delicious frozen… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Content Marketing is for the Dogs
Officially launching a website isn’t the exhale that it used to be. We certainly high-fived and enjoyed the moment recently after we hit the “Publish” button on a new social site for our client FURminator, but we sat right back in our seats after the high-five and got back to work creating more content. The… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
B2B Marketing, Paula Deen, and Differentiation
One of the best lunches I had in recent months was with Carmen Popescu, Senior Project Coordinator of Pharmaceutical Applications at Roquette America. Our conversation ranged from linguistics to Ceaușescu to tabbouleh to the state of higher education in America to hair care products. Carmen is energetic, witty, and warm, the kind of person you… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Be Held: The Art of Packaging
I didn’t have the type of mother who said things like, “Well, you’re a sight to behold,” but if I did, she would have said that to me just about every day during my middle school years. I regret many of the outfits I wore in the mid- to late-eighties, but not because I dressed… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Talk Like There’s No Innovation: B2B Differentiation
I klong weekly. You probably do, too. “Klong” means “a sudden rush of crud to the heart” caused by the realization that you’d said, done, or believed something wrong for a long time. For example, I realized one day years back that I’d been saying and writing the phrase “for all intensive purposes” for at… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Marketing the Impossible
We love challenges, whether they’re related to marketing strategy, advertising, brand building, or eating X number of Y in Z minutes. So we especially love it when we partner with a client who enjoys challenges as much as we do. Solazyme Roquette Nutritionals, a new client, is doing amazing things in the food, beverage, and… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Marketing at the Center of Innovation
We’re very excited to be working with Roquette, a world leader in the ingredients industry offering a wide range of products and solutions in human nutrition, pharmacy-cosmetology, paper/board, chemistry-bioindustry, and animal nutrition. Experts in polyols and the leading European producer of maltodextrins, pyrogen-free raw materials, and cationic starches, Roquette has factories in Europe, America, and… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>