Top Chef - Brilliant Marketing Geniuses

I am a reality tv junkie and love watching Bravo TV's Top Chef and its cheftestants. These cheftestants are up and coming chefs that most of the viewers haven't heard of. But in watching these people throughout a season, viewers come to know their talents and personalities and make opinions about them. Whether bad or good, these cheftestants are now cheflebrities. Some of the cheflebrities are capitalizing on their fame and culinary skills, for instance Carla Hall is now a co-host on ABC's The Chew.

This upcoming season of Top Chef marks its 10th season, but the show isn't the only place you see the Top Chef brand. They've added spin off shows including Top Chef Masters and Life After Top Chef. They have also taken the brand and created experiences that allow viewers opportunities to interact with the cheftestants as well as the hosts.

Top Chef Kitchen, located in NYC, will host various cheftestants that are preparing a tasting menu for the general public to enjoy. This limited time engagement runs through November 18, 2012 and takes reservations through OpenTable. Service runs from Tuesday through Sunday and two new cheftestants run the kitchen each week. A four course prix fixe menu will set you back $95 ($125 with wine pairings), but you're able to experience cuisine you may not even heard of. This week at Top Chef Kitchen Tiffany Derry (season seven, Top Chef: DC) is preparing mascarpone ravioli, crispy ruby red trout, pork belly and southern banana pudding. The second chef this week is Paul Qui (winner of season nine's Top Chef: Texas) who is preparing onion (yes, that's the name of his first course), poached chicken wings, roasted chicken and buttermilk sorbet. These chefs are able to demonstrate their skills to the public, but really, this gives an even larger push to the Top Chef brand. Making it a limited time engagement makes it that more exciting and forces the public to act now. Here's what one reviewer had to say, "The staff was fantastic, friendly and attentive. Everyone from Bravo was great! Watching the show from the start, it was great to try the chef's food and actually taste what they were judged on." If only I lived in NYC.

The next marketing event that the marketing geniuses from Bravo TV and Top Chef cooked up is a cruise from April 11-15, 2013. Again it's a limited time engagement, but a captive audience, only limited by the number of spots available on the ship. Top Chef: The Cruise is hosted by two of the Top Chef judges, Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio. In addition interactive events, demonstrations and the ability to taste food from the top judges there's a Q&A with the hosts, the two Top Chef Masters and the 12 cheftestants. You can enjoy this cruise on the Celebrity Constellation ship for a bargain price of $799 (based on double occupancy), but don't forget to add in the $299 for taxes, fees and booking charges. And if you want to drink, you should probably add the beverage package at $255. So all in all, you're looking at almost $1,400 for an interior room, but you're able to be part of an experience and special event. Many of the rooms are already sold out.

For someone that is enthralled with the Top Chef series (and even gets excited to watch reruns), this is an event that gives viewers and the public an opportunity that they wouldn't have otherwise to interact with the people they see on tv. These events are beneficial to the brand because it generates more interest and more of a loyal following to the shows from the people that are able to participate. It's also great from a marketing perspective because it's a time limited engagement, but the impact is huge. Bravo TV and Top Chef are also doing a good job of promoting these events and their shows through social media. It's obvious they have a comprehensive marketing and communications plan that is geared towards building their brand and their tv viewer base.

Webpage Not Found

I'm finally getting around to reading the September issue of Entrepreneur and I see an article titled, "To Pin or Not to Pin" that discusses Pinterest. If you still haven't heard about Pinterest yet, it's the fastest growing social media site and membership continues to grow at ridiculous rates. You "pin" something that you see from the Internet and people can "repin" that pin to their "boards" and "like" your pin as well.

Some businesses have already seen the potential marketing value in using this free website and have created corporate accounts for their brands. Using Pinterest from a corporate perspective is all fine and dandy, but as with everything, you need to be able to track a ROI.

Enter MarketMeSuite, a company (according to the Entrepreneur article I read) allows companies to "enter their company's URL and instantly see how many pinners are promoting that company on Pinterest." Overcome with excitement at the potential of this new tracking tool, I opened my laptop to access the link printed in the magazine. To my disappointment, I received a "404 URL Not Found" error.

WHAT???

If MarketMeSuite promised in a magazine article (circulation of more than 600,000 by the way) they should be able to handle the response from the press. Public relations 101 really.

Let's say a company (we're talking in generic terms now) decided after an article was published on their product or service, that it just wasn't going to work out and they were going to use their resources on a different product or service. Fine and dandy, but have a backup plan. Post information on the URL that was published in that article to explain what happened with the product. Simple as that.

If you've decided to change the URL because it aligns better with getting organic users to your website, keep the URL that was originally published and have it redirect to the new URL. That way you keep the article readership continued on the path to use your product and service and you can still promote your new URL for marketing purposes.

Have Your Meeting in the Great Outdoors

Have you ever held a meeting on the golf course? It's a unique venue that you may not have thought about utilizing for your upcoming business meeting. Even just playing in a foursome, as opposed to a full tournament, offers benefits to you.

First, you're in a different atmosphere. People tend to be more open and forthright with information in a more relaxed atmosphere than they are in the office or in a more formal meeting setting. It's also important to note that most people think golf is fun, not work, which also factors into the more relaxed atmosphere.

Second, you'll be on the course for at least four hours (if you're playing 18), which gives you a longer amount of time to spend with the person you're meeting with. If you were planning a regular meeting in a office setting for four hours, forget anyone being interested in that! With golf, there's an expected and acceptable timeframe of at least four hours. In that timeframe you can get a lot accomplished, depending on your goals for the meeting. You can learn a lot about your golfing partner on a personal and professional level.

Third, spending that much time with someone (and learning more about them personally and professionally) can help you build a rapport with them. Now you have something to talk about the next time you call them up, "Hey, how are those new clubs treating you" or "Hey, remember that amazing shot you had out of the sand? Well, I was wishing I had your skills this past weekend - ended up double bogey."

Lastly, anytime you're looking for a gift for that person, you're pretty safe giving them golf balls or other accessories. You could even schedule a quarterly golf outing and take them out, which is pretty cheap, considering you have them as an audience for at least four hours.

Advertising Review: Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has recently began airing "The Business Travel Challenge" advertisement series that spoofs the competition show Wipeout. You can see the ads on YouTube. What makes these ads seemingly successful are the following things:

• Established idea - The tv show Wipeout is currently in its sixth season and the majority of tv-watching Americans likely know what the premise is, even if they've never watched the show.
• Highlights features - Southwest Airlines highlighted what sets them apart from their competitors (bag fees, blackout dates, etc.)
• Funny element - Many times, funny equals memorable, which is exactly what you want with advertising. 

Now I said earlier "seemingly successful." The success of the campaign will ultimately be decided upon what Southwest Airlines' goals are. Increased sales? Increased brand recognition? Whatever the goals, they'll be tracking those against a timeline. Take a lesson from Southwest Airlines to build upon an established and recognized idea to create a memorable ad or marketing piece as part of a well-planned marketing campaign.

Get Creative With Online Resources: Amazon Wish Lists

My spring cleaning tasks came a little late this year as I was collecting things around my house to either recycle, donate or trash. From all the traveling that my husband and I have done over the past couple of years, we have accumulated three shoe boxes full of sample sized shampoos, conditioners, lotions and soaps. My first thought was to donate them to a women's or homeless shelter, so I hopped online to search for shelters in the area. One of the shelters mentioned an Amazon Wish List.

This is a brilliant use of online resources to get what you need. Not only are women's and homeless shelters using this tactic, but pet shelters as well. They add items to their Amazon Wish Lists that they need in order people to donate. Those that want to donate can make purchases directly from those Wish Lists and it is sent directly to the shelter. The beauty of Amazon's Wish Lists is that you can add things to the Wish List even if it's not sold on Amazon. Creating an Amazon Wish List is free.

Shelters aren't the only organizations that can benefit from from this free online resource. Various departments can create wish lists for their office needs, party planners can make a wish list for supplies needed or wanted for upcoming parties, etc. The only limit is your creativity.

Book Review: How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less

I just finished reading "How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less" by Milo O. Frank. This was a good, quick read to demonstrate how to get your point across in a very short amount of time. Not only does he discuss how to do it, but the author makes a really good point to mention one thing that people overlook: anticipating the point of view of the person receiving your message. Although this book was written in 1986, it made mention of how important people's time is because they feel they don't have enough. I think the same is even more true now with the vast amount of technology and efficiency at our fingertips. This book would also be a good starting point for someone that is writing their 30 second elevator speech.

The Number One Rule When Posting on the Internet

This month's Self magazine had a page called "Tweet your way to a sweet job." While it didn't really talk about how to get a sweet job by tweeting, it did analyze different types of tweets. Out of the six categories of tweets they listed (the share, the overshare, the rant, the review, the Q&A and the yawn), the most important one is the overshare. Their example displayed this tweet: "Way too much tequila last night. Hangover city!"

As tempting as it is to tweet about everything in your life, make sure you follow the number one rule when posting on the Internet: Don't post anything you wouldn't want your boss to see. That doesn't mean that you can't post opinions or be yourself on the Internet, it just means that you need to take an editing eye. There are a lot of things you can do to help keep your boss from seeing certain things that you post on the Internet (your level of security on your Facebook profile for instance), but remember, people can find what you've posted even if it is secure. Another tactic that people use with Twitter is to say in their profile "thoughts are my own." Sometimes that can help with the perception of what you're tweeting, but it depends on what your boss will think of what you've posted, even if you're taking precautions.

If you don't want to worry about the potential to cross wires with your boss and company, be aware of your company's social media policies and don't post anything that you wouldn't want your boss to see!