• Awakening & Awareness
• Transparency & Traceability
• and Self-Sufficiency & Empowerment

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A Message to You Foodie 2011

Please feel free to share that delicious morsel with clients, colleagues, and lunch dates. Or, if you’d prefer a text-only version, just keep reading below. (And, if you’re completely confused by the theme of this post, the references to the Specials, or the dancing dude to the right, go ahead and get yourself acquainted.)

A Message to You Foodie 2011

Stop Your Messing Around. Better Think of Food Future.

In our last foray into food trends, things were looking pretty sour. Obesity was weighing us (and our kids) down, misleading food labels were offering everything but “smart choices,” and hucksters kept promising suspicious benefits from so-called “superfoods” that we could barely pronounce. Amidst plenty of Future Fear about intractable problems facing the economy, global politics, and the fate of Two and a Half Men, we’d understand if pessimism about food future was lumped into the mix. But, something funny has happened in the meantime: the major players in the food world suddenly started cooperating and taking significant swings at the category’s toughest problems. In the past few months alone, we’ve seen South Los Angeles (an area with chronically high rates of obesity) take a stand against food deserts by banning new fast-food restaurants and actively recruiting healthier options. We’ve seen San Francisco wrist-slap kids’ meals that dangle toys as carrots instead of just dangling some damn carrots already. We’ve seen food manufacturers like Kraft filling gaps in municipal funding (and giving kids a place to be active) by building neighborhood playgrounds. In fact, if we had to pick one overarching food theme for 2011, it’d be progress and pragmatism in tackling the category’s most entrenched problems. (Fortunately we don’t have to pick just one. We’ll get to the others in our forthcoming Smartshot webinar.)

As you’d expect, some of the biggest contributors to this remarkable progress have come from the liberal, hippie, anti-business, nanny-state environmentalists at… Walmart?? Yup, their Great Value private label foods were already tough competitors on price, and now Walmart’s launched a five year plan to reduce sodium, trans fats and added sugars in these foods. (A five year plan? What is this, Stalinmart?) The nation’s largest retailer is also exerting pressures on manufacturers like ConAgra and Kraft to adopt similar measures for the foods they sell in-store. For some added incentive, Walmart’s tightening the screws by dropping prices on whole grain foods, fresh fruits, and vegetables, and even considering a seal that would distinguish foods that are low in sodium, sugar, and fat. And, just to make sure they’re staying on task, Walmart has agreed to provide progress reports to… Michelle Obama?? Yup, the First Lady’s made childhood obesity her first priority, and her Let’s Move initiative is promising realistic, achievable changes that are grounded in common sense. While her neighbors in the Beltway must think that’s crazy talk, that’s exactly the kind of strategy that’ll go far in boardroom. The collaboration with Walmart is just one example of the First Lady actively engaging corporate America in her efforts, which is partially a realization that Walmart has as much power as the federal government to impact these problems (if not more). That’s not to say the feds aren’t trying. They just overhauled the USDA food pyramid, with takeaways that are uncharacteristically straightforward: eat less, be more active, cut back on salt and sugary drinks, and keep an eye on calories. The “eat less” piece is perhaps the most startling part (the pyramid has never really addressed the issue), and it’s a big win for the shift towards small (yup, we called it with our Sized Right trend). These recommendations are simple enough for a child to follow, and that’s no accident. Kids consume over half of their calories at school, which is why there’s an effort to get them involved in preparing cafeteria lunches or, at the very least, to understand where their food comes from.

This all sounds so completely… reasonable, which explains why we’re seeing such progress on these problems. There’s a growing acknowledgment that superfoods aren’t the answer, that quick fixes to health probably don’t exist, and that health and wellness isn’t as complicated as we often make it out to be. There’s not a lot here that we didn’t already know; it’s just that eating healthy and being active have always been so difficult for the average consumer. Ask Walmart why they’re instituting the aforementioned changes, and they’ll tell you that their customers asked them to help by making the healthier foods more affordable than the junk. And that’s what’s radically different this time ‘round: for every problem facing the food world, the big players are offering practical solutions that make it easier for consumers to lead healthy lives. Yes, the USDA is telling us to eat less, but restaurants and food manufacturers are making this trade-off a tasty one by offering everything from sliders to substantial snacks to small plates. Yes, fatty foods are a delicious way to ensure you don’t live past 50, but chefs are finding smarter and tastier alternatives like duck fat (as any Hot Doug’s fan already knew). Yes, you knew that a bacon double cheeseburger is basically a sucker-punch to your circulatory system, but menus with calorie counts are now revealing the less obvious horrors of your morning muffin or daily burrito. Yes, you need to eat your veggies, so chefs and food manufacturers alike are reexamining ways to get all kinds of flavors out of formerly forsaken produce, even if it requires looking toward cultures that are more traditionally vegetable-focused (anyone catching a whiff of our Primitive Simplicity trend?).

But the idea of practical solutions is perhaps most evident in the realm of meat consumption. Americans are grudgingly acknowledging the personal and environmental downsides of consuming too much meat, but many aren’t ready for the extreme limitations required by vegetarianism or veganism. (Gotta allow for Baconnaise, right?) Normally, that’d be the end of the story, but a number of strange bedfellows are finding themselves promoting a third option: flexitarianism, or getting creative about cutting back on meat consumption (without completely eliminating it). It’s certainly worth noting when numerous trend-setting eateries embrace Meatless Mondays, including all 14 restaurants run by snout-to-tail advocate Mario Batali. But things are really changing when we see Meatless Mondays institutionalized at Sodexo, which supplies food for hospitals, government institutions, and schools. As one of the biggest employers in the world, reducing Sodexo’s meat consumption by 1/7 makes a dramatic dent in the overall demand for industrial livestock, but also makes it more likely that others will follow. For instance, Kellogg is doubling down on its Morningstar product line, including a new line of soy-based breakfast entrees. (And lest you think it’s those darn kids driving this trend, Kellogg’s primary target for this line is Boomer women.)

Flexitarians aside, the meat of the matter is that concerns about health and wellness are becoming an increasingly significant part of the American consumer’s value equation. They’re realizing the long-term implications of the choices they make at the table. They’ve clamored for practical solutions, and the food, beverage, and beauty industries (among others) have delivered them. So here’s the message to you, Foodies: get your programs in tune with progress and your consumers’ calls for practical solutions.

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Part of the explanation for the rise of these machines is that they’re especially well suited to today’s consumer, who wants everything on-demand around-the-clock. (Geez, a little demanding, aren’t we?) Since vending machines don’t require an overtime salary, they can fill this need when your doors close. Basically, we’re trying to say that you can get fresh meat from your butcher in the middle of the night, okay?

It also doesn’t hurt that brands get humongous bang for their buc– err, footprint in a tough retailing environment. While traditional shopping malls generate about $330 per square foot, vending machines in malls are estimated to earn up to $10,000 in the same space (and, like everything else at the airport, that number is about four times higher there.)

Advances in technology are certainly helping, too. A prototype from a recent conference showed a vending machine that integrates PayPal accounts, QR codes, a smartphone camera and Twitter to allow consumers to make mobile e-payments for goods. Meanwhile, a Japanese company has created vending machines that use face and body recognition cameras to recommend drinks according to the customer’s profile (gee, I can’t imagine any scenario where this could backfire). And, just to prove the point that you can distribute anything via vending machines, there’s a line of Japanese machines that can now distribute live crabs.

The point isn’t that you need all of those bells and whistles to make the vending machine work; just know that the technology is available to make these machines as flexible as you can imagine. For instance, this vending machine that dispenses gold bars is, admittedly, ridiculous.  But, the fact that it dispenses the gold based on the real-time price of gold is the intriguing part – what kind of data could you integrate into your brand’s vending machine? A particular temperature? A number of tweets that mention the brand? A foursquare check-in at the location?

Some brands are turning the vending machine concept on its head, such as Pepsi’s Dream Machine pictured above. It’s a branded version of the Greenopolis Kiosk, which, in exchange for consumers recycling glass, plastic, and aluminum containers, provides participants with points that can be redeemed for travel, movies, shopping, and more. Pepsi’s version sweetens that pot by also contributing to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) for each item recycled, which is a nice touch.

Finally, you might remember when we shared Coke’s “Happiness Machine,” calling it out as an example of delighting consumers with hidden surprises. It’s interesting to consider that a vending machine is seen as an inherently fun way of making purchases, an insight that wasn’t lost on a new program that is replacing the snacks in high school vending machines with veggies that are dressed up to look like junk food (and it’s working, too!). If you go down this path, don’t miss that insight for your brand; be sure to make the interaction a fun experience.

Set the Ex-Sample

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Set the Ex-Sample

An Ample Sample of Exemplary Sampling

Have you been stuck in rapturous daydreams about world-rocking sampling? We’re not surprised, after our last Smartshot webinar walked through – or, more accurately, stomped all over – sampling’s ho-hum past. We showed how present-day sampling’s become ever more engaging and dramatic, and introduced 5 best practices. Admittedly, some were more exciting than others; even though steps like precise targeting and holistic integration are imperative to sampling success, they’re not quite as fun as, say, “generating curiosity and anticipation.” In fact, that particular best practice provides enough room for innovation, experimentation, and general craziness that it’s worth flushing out in its own Potty Posting. So let’s get to it.

As noted in our Smartshot, distributing samples is easier than ever, and today’s consumers are simply bombarded with free swag. With this much clutter, it’s hard to get consumers to even see your samples. Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got four other senses to work with! For instance, Welch’s got our tongues wagging with their lick-able Peel & Taste print ads, generating plenty of curiosity while also making you look like a crazy person who licks magazines in public. But print ads are not only getting tastier – they’re also getting better for your skin. Thanks to BeautiSeal pouches, P&G has been able to sample moisturizers in print ads, allowing consumers to experience the product’s scent and texture without turning the whole magazine into a dripping glob of Olay. And while that sounds much more appealing than blasting consumers in the face with dry, scented air, that’s exactly the idea behind sampling via shelf puffers. These devices are gaining popularity as an in-store sampling tool for fragrances, scented CPG products, and anything else that could appeal to your nose. And, when you compare a puff of dry air to getting shot by a fragrance-filled watergun, I guess it doesn’t sound so bad. And yes, we’ve made it this far without pointing out the connection to Immersive Sensory Experiences from our 10 Trends for 2010, presumably because you already made that connection yourself, right? Don’t make us blast Source-scented dry air at you! (In case you’re curious, it’s the intoxicating scent of smarts.)

Y’know what else is notable about the sensory sampling examples? None of them require the clichéd old lady in a hairnet to hand ‘em out. In fact, there’s a whole line of sampling tactics that have replaced human sampling because – dun dun dun! – the machines have taken over. (Shh, no one tell the Governator.) The formerly-bland vending machine now offers some of the most immersive sampling experiences available, and since there’s no need to pay overtime (shh, no one tell the vending machine union), the samples can be distributed anytime, anyplace. The Boobox dispenses samples when users send a text from their phone, which ensures that consumers only get a single sample, but also enables the brand to collect data that can be used for follow-up conversations. Granted, that’s not as fun as, say, a vending machine that gives you free ice cream if you smile big enough, or one that dispenses your sample after you successfully complete a brain teaser (shown to the right). Honestly, you never thought you’d have this much fun with a vending machine, did you?

Blanketing the Earth with your samples makes for a great bottom line, but it also makes for a crappy Planet Earth. We’ve all seen the sorry remains of a sampling event strewn with discarded packaging and unwanted samples. Some CPG brands are switching to Xela Pack as a remedy, since they provide a line of 100% post-consumer recycled paper alternatives for primary and secondary packaging. Then again, it won’t be long until we can get rid of much of the physical waste altogether. The growth of technologies like virtual mirrors has given rise to virtual sampling opportunities, where the product benefits can be experienced and personalized without any physical accompaniment.

Finally, in line with our 10th trend from 2010, you can never go wrong with delighting your consumers with the element of surprise. Normally, brands would be a tad concerned if they heard that residents were tearing down the contents of their billboard, but apparently that’s how they do things in the Austrian city of Graz. Or, at least that’s what happened when the outdoor clothing company Northland Pro affixed product samples to billboards throughout the city (see the image at the top). Each day, the 50-or-so billboards were graced with 20 items for the taking, generating a ton of word-of-mouth (and a handful of entertaining videos) in the process. Then again, perhaps your brand isn’t keen on the possibility of starting a riot. No matter, thanks to the “Interesting Stuff” project from London’s Matter. Manufacturers provide the service with samples that go beyond a single-serving, making a more compelling (or, more to the point, interesting) statement about what the company does and stands for. Matter boxes the stuff up, sends it to targeted recipients at no charge, and ensures that they’ll arrive on a Saturday (when the person is more likely to spend time interacting with the items). Interesting Stuff has lived up to its name so far, intriguing brands like Sony Ericsson, Stolichnaya, Nintendo, and Virgin Atlantic.

Let the statisticians worry about sampling bias – you get to work on creating some world-rocking sampling!

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Like the campaign pictured to the right, for instance. We don’t need to say much for you to get it, other than the fact that these oversized rings appeared on animal- and marine-themed sculptures across Vancouver. The campaign itself didn’t say much either, other than a small mention of the plasticpollutioncoalition.org on the side of the rings.

What can we say – it’s a powerfully simple message, and a great application of guerrilla marketing. Nicely done.

That’s what makes the above video from Puma so refreshing. The clip takes the viewer through the story behind the packaging change, and drives home the environmental benefits in a visually appealing manner. Conversations about megajoules don’t normally look this good.

The same can be said for Starbucks’ “The Big Picture” campaign, in which Starbucks’ drinkers pledge to switch from disposable cups to reusable travel mugs. Again, a nice gesture, but not too exciting. Yet, the campaign does a nice job quantifying the aggregate results of thousands of consumers making the switch. The campaign video (housed here) feels more like a lighthearted Apple ad than an environmental message, and it’s framed by a real-time counter showing the total environmental impact generated by the campaign (the latter being a nice example of using gaming mechanisms to make mundane tasks more fun).

Both of these campaigns go beyond simply touting their green credentials; they each tell stories about sustainability. In a recent article from Mediapost’s Marketing Green, the author claims that storytelling is “the antidote to information overload.” By connecting these somewhat mundane behaviors to an emotional context (i.e. being part of a worldwide cause), participation feels much more like an enthusiastic statement of values than a guilt-motivated chore.

Marketers who are touting their green credentials (and frankly, who isn’t these days) must recognize that there’s just as much clutter in the green space as there is elsewhere. For your efforts to really resonate, make that messaging sexy, emotional, and – gasp! – a lot more fun to digest.

Looking for some last-minute plans for this weekend? Guess what? So is your canine companion. Throw him a bone, will ya?

Fortunately, our friends (and sister agency) Neighbor are launching Petco’s Natural Neighborhood Festival this weekend. Participating Petco stores across the country will be offering tips on grooming, training, dog walking, and more.

And, if you happen to be in the Santa Monica area, you’ve got access to the main event, which isn’t just another walk in the park. Experts will be puppy massages, leading exercise classes (including Downward Dog Yoga), and holding photoshoots, while Tillman the skateboarding dog will also make an appearance.

Sheesh, these puppies have better weekend plans that I do.

Nice work Neighbor – you guys deserve a treat!

Can we get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do? The idea here is capture on camera the people who keep to the speed limit. They would have their photos taken and registration numbers recorded and entered into a lottery. Winners would [receive] cash prizes and be notified by post. Better still, the winning pot would come from the people who were caught speeding.

A “fun” campaign all around, we’d say.

But we aren’t the only folks touting the benefits of bringing a bit of fun to everyday tasks. Jesse Schell, of Carnegie Mellon University, is even more gung-ho about the topic. In this CNN article (thanks to Adam Stipanuk for the tip!), Schell ruminates on how to insert gaming into everything. While his ideas oscillate between the clever and the far-fetched, some are worth nothing. Our oral care clients might be interested in Schell’s suggestions for incentivizing better brushing habits (which has already been attempted with kids); perhaps there are similar opportunities for other health and beauty regimens?

Schell also calls attention to Green Goose, a product that can be affixed to a bike in order to measure the total distance you’ve ridden. You can compare this distance to friends and coworkers, automatically post your rides to Twitter or Facebook, and – perhaps most interestingly – see how much money you’ve saved compared to driving. (Green Goose can even transfer that amount to an interest-bearing savings account.) For some, this product may lead to a change in behavior (i.e. someone starting to bike instead of drive). Still, our hunch is that most folks buying a Green Goose are already biking, but this allows them to track and quantify an existing behavior. While a cyclist might generally know that they’re saving money compared to driving, seeing how high that number gets over a long period of time is probably pretty startling (and, more to the point, fun). It’s an interesting opportunity for a brand to help consumers realize just how much of a good thing they’ve been doing, and in the case of Green Goose, helping them turn that into a bit of cash as well.

After all, the only thing more fun than fun is fun with a bit of profit, right?

We fit squarely into the last category, (no really, we got the Panel Nerd badge on foursquare to prove it!) but this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to regular readers. After all, we’ve been talking about inserting games into everyday tasks for quite a while on The Awesome Blog. Since pretty we’re familiar with this concept, let’s dive right into a slew of great examples from Kickstarter.com’s Andy Baio.

Baio described a number of situations in which gaming mechanics were used to motivate employees, staff, or volunteers. For instance, Target started giving their cashiers grades based on the speed of their checkouts (as illustrated here). Best of all, the rating system was so easy (G=Green, Y=Yellow, and R=Red) that even a caveman could… oh, never mind. And, low and behold, as soon as cashiers realized they could improve their grades by speeding up their transactions, a lot of friendly competition broke out among them. (Target rarely uses the scores to evaluate the employees, except in especially bad situations.) The Panic software company instituted a more complex scoring system for their employees (pictured above), ranking them on everything from revenue generation to customer responsiveness, but the central ideas were the same: accountability, instant feedback, and the ability to compare yourself to your peers. The Obama campaign even used this kind of system to motivate their volunteer canvassers, ranking them on a leaderboard based on how many people they had contacted. That seems to have worked out well for them, I’d say.

But, the fun and games aren’t confined to the workplace. As we mentioned in our earlier post, gaming can be great way for brands to help ease their consumers through the more mundane tasks in their day. For instance, like it or not, most of us need to be fluent in Microsoft Office programs to get through our workdays. At the same time, we often don’t have a clue as to what most of those little icons on the toolbar actually do. So, Microsoft took it upon themselves to create Ribbon Hero – yes, really. The “game” is little more than a training module that assigns you points for completing various challenges (i.e. using the lesser-known tools), but it sure as heck beats reading the manual, right? Even hybrid cars have found a way to make efficient driving more game-like (since we all know it’s way more fun to drive recklessly), such as the Ford Fusion Hybrid’s SmartGauge pictured to the right. When you drive more fuel-efficiently, the vine continues to grow, and… well, that’s it. But, it was enough to make Wired’s reviewers gush, “It turns hypermiling into a videogame… We almost cheered whenever another leaf appeared.”

So, what is it about these gaming mechanisms that make us so predictable? Are they playing on some deep-seated psychological needs that we simple humans just can’t resist? Um, yeah, basically. But it’s not as sinister as it sounds; in essence, we’re just talking about different forms of incentivization. What you’re incentivizing people to do is your own business, Mr. Wall Street CEO. In the meantime, Baio groups these mechanisms into four main categories:

• Feedback (Points, Metrics, Levels) – Ways for the consumer to track his or her progress in real-time. However, keep in mind that generating points for points’ sake can become monotonous, and often distracts the user away from the bigger task behind the game. (This is actually why foursquare may be moving away from points. We’ll get to them, really!)
• Goals (Missions, Challenges, Quests) – Giving the consumer a clear goal or a well-defined challenge helps them know when they are close to completing the task. If you were 90% of the way there, you wouldn’t stop, right?
• Recognition (Awards, Achievements, Collectibles) – Well you certainly wouldn’t stop at 90% if you knew you were getting a gold star at the end!
• Community (Competition*, Collaboration, Reciprocity) – This is something that has really changed with the advent of the internet. It’s never been easier to engage in gaming as part of a community, whether it’s competing against a larger population or collaborating with them.

However, there’s a reason for that little asterisk after “competition.” In his experience, Baio has found that leaderboards can be a little too effective in stimulating competition. Oftentimes, participants jockeying for the top few positions become hyper-competitive to the point that the rest of the community feels excluded. (I’d say this image is a nice illustration of the phenomenon.) Instead, Baio suggests tapping the other end of the social spectrum: collaboration. As evidenced by the enormous success of Farmville (which we’ve covered before), making some tasks dependent on collaboration and reciprocity ends up uniting the community around a common goal, and generally establishes positive behaviors as the norm. That is, if you consider 8 hours of virtual farming to be a positive behavior…

More SXSW coverage is right around the corner!

For starters, we mentioned that a number of cause marketing efforts were tapping the wisdom of crowds to generate unorthodox solutions to daunting social problems. PechaKucha, who we’ve profiled before, recently brought together a worldwide network of smarties to discuss solutions to the crisis in Haiti. The presentations were offered in a “wave” (moving east to west, from eastern New Zealand to San Francisco), which was accompanied by a simultaneous wave of fundraising. This two-pronged approach really drove home the notion that an aggregate of small contributions (of both money and ideas) could produce big solutions. It’s a great model for brands who want to make a lasting impact on a specific (and significant) social problem.

We also mentioned the idea of making big differences in small places, which Odwalla recently embraced in their announcement of a tree-planting campaign to help bolster state parks across the nation. Since state parks are dependent on state budgets (as opposed to the national park system), they’ve been especially hard hit in the current recession. Even though the state parks don’t usually work together in this way, Odwalla’s using their national presence to make a difference across a variety of local communities. Sounds like someone’s gonna be a Hometown Hero!

(In case you’re wondering whether these efforts pay off from the brand’s perspective, it’s worth noting that this is actually an extension of an earlier Odwalla campaign. That effort – pictured above – offered to divvy up 100,000 trees among 11 states’ parks, as determined by visitors to the parkvisitor.com/odwalla site. Considering that the new iteration is being extended to all 50 states, Odwalla clearly feels that this campaign’s worth the effort.)

Got examples of your own? Feel free to share them in the comment section below!