But, looking at the bottle, there isnt exactly a lot of information about where this is from and what is in it. While it is true the back of the bottle actually has a map showing where it is from and I can make my way through the excellent a href=http://kermitlynch.com/Kermit Lynch Wine Merchent website/a (http://kermitlynch.com/) to find info about what is in this wine. But the fact is, not only does that require me to actually put aside the wine, go to my computer (KLWM website built on flash so It doesnt work on an iPhone or iPad) and remember what I am looking for, but the KLWM site doesnt actually tell you what is in this wine. It does tell you some great trivia about the family making the wine but I still want to know what is in this wine!

So, I go to the Italian website. And, low and behold, the wine is made from Corvino. According to Wikipedia, Corvino is also Corvina and used in Italy to produce a light to medium body wine with light crimson color.

OK, so I think this is great and I am glad to know this info. But, I gotta ask, if KLWM can make its own label and but its logo on the back of the bottle, why not the KLWM webiste URL and a QR Code I can use with my phone to go directly to a page about the wine? After all, if I had been anywhere but at home, Igettig this info would have been almost impossible since I would not have remembered to do all of this research later.

br /br /a href=http://foodfortherestofus.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120131-100408.jpgimg src=http://foodfortherestofus.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120131-100408.jpg alt=20120131-100408.jpg class=alignnone size-full //a

Odds are you have. Even if you are a non-capable, nearly hulu only tv viewing person such as I, the odds are that you have seen some sort of clip or video of yiayia calling a stay at home dad a wife or telling a young unmarried couple they are “going to hell” on TV, the web or even the YouTube channel yiatube.

According to the Wall Street Journal, these adds are a part of Kraft’s new approach to marketing that includes the company aggressively adopting and incorporating social media into it’s new campaigns.

So, how is it working? Well, good ol yiayia has more than 150,000 Facebook friends and her own YouTube channel with close to three million uploads. And its not limited to yiayia either. According to the WSJ, Kraft discovered that twitter postings about Mac &Cheese numbered in the thousands some days. So, Kraft capitalized on this popularity by building a contest out of it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304450604576416051591186240.html?KEYWORDS=Kraft+spiffs+up+it%27s+old+brands

The question that comes to my mind is this: if it works for craft, why couldn’t his work for you?

All Kraft is doing is using social media to help spread the word or tell a unique story while engaging a huge audience.

Basically, they either created a unique story or recognized how they are already being perceived and then used social media as a vehicle to get the word out and tell more people.

While I am not saying you should go out and run a twitter contest or build a YouTube channel, I am saying that if you take the time to talk with you customers to tell them why your food, wine, cheese, spirits (liquor) or what not are unique, maybe it might be good to consider investing just a little bit of time and effort to use social media to help you tell the same story to hundreds or thousands of people at the same time.

The fact is, if you are a completely original, unique or special producer or company and no one knows about you or your uniqueness, in the eyes of your consumer you are not unique or special. People love uniqueness and social media thrives when it tells a story that is unique, so if you think you are unique, there is much to be gained by using social media.

By being a small local food business, you are already unique, so why not see if you can make this work for you. After all, if a multinational food company can use social media to make themselves look unique, and it works for them, and you are already unique, why couldn’t it work for you?

Yes, I did ask if you know the history of the potato; and, no, I am not joking. An interesting facet to the history of potatoes is that the history includes

Potatoes did not originate in Europe, Russia or Africa. While a great many of edible tubers do originate from those parts of the world, the potato in all of its many forms, flavors, colors and textures actually originated in South America. Akin to corn, tomatoes, and other present day North American / European kitchen vegitable staples, potatoes were brought back from South America by early explorers. Although these explorers did not have the tools or technology to assess or quantify all of the nutritional values and benefits potatoes can offer, through direct observation of the native peoples’ eating habits and overall health, explorers correctly assessed that potatoes could be an excellent food source for the masses “back in the old country.”

But, despite all of its nutritional values and benefits, potatoes were not exactly an instant hit with those masses. In fact, potatoes initially received staunch resistance and great skepticism by those very masses who were to benefit from eating potatoes. From a branding or communications perspective, potatoes suffered from a significant image or public perception problem. Potatoes were completely new and entirely unknown. Not only did they look strange if not bizzare, but people did not know what or how to prepare them for consumption. When confronted with this strange and bizzare thing, the masses reacted with fear and skepticism, rumoring potatoes to be poisonous among other things, and deeply entrenched resistance to potatoes.

The important question to ask is: what happened? How did the potato go from evil food vilan to much loved and prized food staple?

Persuasion

Or, by other standards, very cunning trickery.

As the story goes, Antoine Augustine Parmentier – a pharmacist, chemist and employee of Louis XV, was came up with a fairly surreptitious way of persuading local French peasants to overcome their resistance to potatoes. Apparently, he planted 50 acres of potatoes just outside of Paris in a poor neighborhood. “During the day, he set a guard over it. This drew considerable attention in the neighborhood. In the evening the guard was relaxed and the locals came to see what all the fuss was about. Believing this plant must be valuable, many peasants “acquired” some of the potatoes from the plot, and soon were growing the root in their own garden plots. Their resistance was overcome by their curiosity and desire to better their lot with the obviously valuable new produce.” (from Potato!- History)

According to Robert B. Cialdini, “Scarcity can not only increase the perceived value of an entity, it can also influence the perceptions of an item (emotional, flavors, intensity, etc.)” and “when increasing scarcity – or anything else- interferes with our prior access to some item, we will react against the interference by waiting and trying to possess the item more than before.” (Robert B. Cialdini, Influence Science and Practice, 4th edition 2001, p. 209).

So, by placing soldiers around the potato fields and restricting access, Parmentier significantly increased the perceived value of the potatoes.

Would such a technique apply today? Yes. Current examples include limited edition bottling of wines or spirits. Other examples include limited availability based on geography, seasonality or specified growing conditions such as certified organic. Simply put, by restricting access, availability or creating exclusivity, perceived value can be added to a product, even if it that product is just a lowly potato.

Grilin'

Guys like to Grill because it isn’t cooking

How many guys do you know (including yourself) who “don’t cook” but are the Grill Master at home, amongst friends or even the neighborhood?

But……

Isn’t the most basic and fundamental element to cooking the process of applying heat to food in order to alter some aspect of the food’s taste, texture or color in order to make it edible, or at least more edible?

So, isn’t grilling or bar-b-queing cooking?

Yes.

So why claim not to cook and then profess a passion for cooking by another name?

In a word, perception.

Even with massive media presence of celebrety chefs such as Bobby Flay and Emeril, the act and concept of cooking remains closely associated with maternal or feminine roles such as nuturing and caring for the family.

Meanwhile, grilling and bar-b-que are associated with images and concepts related to “the hunt”, survival, and the outdoors.

Don’t believe me? Compare the images of Rachel Ray and the Barefoot Contessa vs Bobby Flay and Guy Fierri.

Adding fuel to the fire, is how cooking is portrayed as difficult, time consuming, and something enjoyed only by the “elites” – those with time, money and/or “culture”. So now, not only is cooking perceived as feminine, it is also difficult, time consuming, elite-ist.

In summary:

cooking = woman, nurture, care, work, tedium, NOT FUN.

grilling/bar-b-que = man, hunt, survival, not work, FUN, cool (not literally),

Hmmmm, which one looks (will be perceived) as fun, not feminine, something a man/father will enjoy, and will be accepted and approved by other men?

Now, how does this relate to social media?

Perception – how a thing is perceived governs how how treat it.

If have something you want people to notice and engage with, try to be your audience’s concept of bar-b-que/grilling and not their perception of cooking.

Use social media to talk with and listen to your audience. Listen to their likes, dislikes, rants and raves. Talk with them on a person to person level, telling the story, details, etc of you, your product, company or vision. Most importantly, make sure you are letting them hear how and why you are grilling and not cooking as if they were saying to themselves.