Rebirth of Jello

Why Jell-O is aquiver

By Lorene Yue November 24, 2012

Jell-O, tired of quivering in the shadow of other snack foods, is about to embark on an aggressive campaign to reclaim its spot in American shopping carts.
The 115-year-old brand within Kraft Foods Group Inc.'s portfolio will undergo a complete overhaul, from packaging to the introduction of products to make it something “moms and kids are going to rediscover,” Kraft CEO Tony Vernon told analysts this month.
The company acknowledges it neglected its core audience—families—in favor of marketing to adults, but it is going back to its original focus. The brand was hugely successful when comedian Bill Cosby was its spokesman for nearly three decades starting in the 1970s. But Jell-O has been fading from consumers' radars in the past decade.
Only 10 percent of Americans say they have eaten gelatin in the past two weeks, down from 15 percent in 1998, according to market researchers at NPD Group Inc.'s Rosemont office.
Overall sales of Jell-O's ready-to-eat products, including pudding, have declined 18 percent in the past two years, according to Chicago-based SymphonyIRI Group. The category of refrigerated puddings, mousse, gelatins and parfaits is down 11 percent.
Theoretically, consumption should be increasing as a tough economy prompts more people to eat at home. But dessert has had difficulty growing as the third course becomes more of an afterthought, says Harry Balzer, NPD Group's chief industry analyst.
Instead, consumers are turning to versatile foods such as yogurt, granola and energy bars because they can be eaten at breakfast or lunch, as a snack or dessert, he says.
Mr. Vernon acknowledged in the third-quarter analyst call that yogurt is a formidable competitor. Consumption of Greek yogurt has nearly doubled in the past two years, with 32 percent of Americans saying they have eaten it at least once in a two-week period, according to NPD Group.
Kraft put a spoon in the market in 2010 by introducing a Greek yogurt line under its Athenos brand but abandoned the attempt less than two years later. One of the top-selling Greek yogurt brands, Chobani, got its start in a yogurt plant that Kraft sold. Kraft says it doesn't want to discuss details of its plans for Jell-O for several more weeks.
But Phil Lempert, editor of SupermarketGuru.com, a consumer products website based in Santa Monica, Calif., sees another reason for Jell-O's difficulties. “I think consumption has gone down because nobody pushed it, nobody marketed it,” he says.
Kraft spent $37.4 million in paid advertising on Jell-O in 2011, nearly half of the $69.5 million it doled out the year before, according to a report in Crain's sister publication Advertising Age.
“We saw it with Kraft Mayo,” says Erin Lash, equity analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. “They increased ad spending 50 percent and saw increased sales of 9 percent.”
Kraft also is trying to tap baby boomer nostalgia with a renewed focus on Jell-O molds that go beyond simple domes with spoonfuls of pineapple or fruit cocktail. Now it sells molds of racing cars and brains to appeal to children and plans to offer more options.
Consumer products experts say the company should apply the same strategy to Jell-O that it used to reinvent Philadelphia Cream Cheese. That brand's Philly Cooking Creme and chocolate-flavored cream cheese gave consumers a way to imagine the spread outside of breakfast and baking.
The strategy has succeeded in other product categories, such as tea. For decades, tea sales were dominated by loose leaf and single-brew bags. Now, companies have unleashed a wave of ready-to-drink beverages that have consumers purchasing tea in a completely different way.
“It's a great opportunity to really look at the ingredients and see what they can do to modernize the brand,” Mr. Lempert says. “The product can really meet the needs of the general public.”

Social Marketing

Social technologies provide a powerful collection of marketing tools, and they are inexpensive compared to other forms of marketing.  Companies including Starbucks, Nike, Pepsi, Dell, Dirt Devil, IBM and JetBlue have already seen tremendous results from social marketing methods, and they are gaining traction with tools like customer intelligence, email, word-of-mouth campaigns and viral video—all tailor-made to provide huge benefits for businesses.
Let's take a closer look at three techniques that can make an immediate positive impact on your marketing efforts:
Customer Intelligence --  Most organizations simply maintain a database with a name, contact information and company.  A customer intelligence strategy would increase the data to 20 or 30 fields of information and would include a mix of business and personal data.  This data can be gathered by simply asking, or through harvesting the information from online social sites where your customer already belongs (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Many businesses now automate this process by connecting their CRM systems to services that find every new customer online and harvest social profile information automatically.   It is now possible to monitor online actions of customers for keywords that might create alerts at the business so action can be taken. For example, if a customer updates a LinkedIn profile with a job change or promotion, your database could be automatically updated, and you could send a congratulatory message.
Other actions that could be monitored include blogs, posts or tweets that customers put online.  By using social listening and setting up alerts on keywords that are important to the industry, you can stay aware of what is on customers' minds, or where they are leaning on topics.  Acting on this information by engaging customers, or promoting what they have written can be invaluable in building tighter relationships
eWord of Mouth marketing – Word of mouth has always been the most powerful driver of human behavior.  People believe their friends or a trusted expert.  They rarely believe advertising.  Social sites and tools have created a dynamic in which people now “talk” to thousands of connections with the touch of a button—in some cases many times a day.  An eWord of Mouth strategy involves identifying centers of influence (e.g. bloggers or Twitterers) in your sphere and providing them with content they want to pass on to their audience.  This will help you create entirely new distribution paths for industry information that will cost you nothing, and yet expand your reach.  With a few simple searches on sites like Twellow.com, Listorious.com and BlogSiteList.com, you can find these people who are centers of influence. There are people connected to many thousands of readers in every industry and on every topic.  When people read content delivered from these human broadcasters, they have a high degree of trust for it.  This new marketing method must become a staple for every organization.
Viral Video – Most people welcome the occasional viral video emailed or sent to them via one of the social sites.  These can be cute cat videos, or clever business-to-business videos.  They are viral because people like them enough to share them at escalating rates.  What is amazing is that many of these videos will get millions of views and cost the video producer ZERO.  Distribution is free and completely scalable.  Sadly, most organizations are wasting the opportunity to create viral videos that would be popular within their industry, or could be used to promote it. After studying what makes videos go viral, I believe it is not magic or luck.  There are clear formulas that, when followed, afford a great chance of getting a large audience and high pass-around velocity. The mistake that most organizations make is having an unclear strategy for the development of a video that will actually be intriguing.   They compound the problem by not engaging the right specialists to script and create the video.
There is a formula for producing winning online videos; they must be funny, clever and somewhat true. This combination provides the best odds for getting a video passed around— in some cases, to millions of people.
Another concept to consider is creating a series of five or six videos, labeled Episode One, Episode Two, etc. In this way, you have multiple properties. If one strikes a chord with viewers, they will come to your Web site to see the rest.
Don’t overlook these three marketing techniques. They have the potential to yield a huge return on investment for the savvy marketing team.

Mobile Sales Rock

IBM: Mobile Sales Jump 63%, Social Commerce Slips

Black Friday big for Apple, less so for Facebook and Twitter By Christopher Heine

With Apple's iPad and iPhone dominating activity, mobile sales on Black Friday hit 16 percent, according to a report from IBM, representing 63 percent growth compared to 2011. And in terms of sheer eyeballs, mobile was also huge on Black Friday (Nov. 23), per IBM, as 24 percent of consumers used mobile devices to visit a retail site.

Generally, it was a strong Black Friday for digital retail, as IBM's 2012 Holiday Benchmark Report found that online sales increased 21 percent year-over-year. However, interestingly, sales deriving from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube fell roughly 35 percent compared to 2011.

Three other highlights from the report:
• Apple represented a huge chunk of the holiday pie. The iPad produced more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, accounting for almost 10 percent of online shopping, while the iPhone was next at 8.7 percent. Meanwhile, Android devices generated 5.5 percent of the traffic.

•The iPad drew 88 percent of all tablet traffic, followed by the Barnes and Noble Nook at 3 percent, and then the Amazon Kindle the Samsung Galaxy, both at 2 percent.

• The age of the digital in-store shopper is here. Fifty-eight percent of Black Friday bargain hunters used smartphones while 41 percent utilized tablets.

Perfect Box of Chocolates

The Perfect Box of Chocolates

For a Mint, Chocolatiers Go Bespoke

By J.S. MARCUS

From left, Patrick Roger 'Colours', 'Embrace' and marrons glacés.

When it comes to the age-old question of which European chocolate is the best, it may simply be a matter of taste. In Belgium, the chocolate is sweeter, and in France, more bitter; Italians err on the side of boldness, the Swiss on the side of creaminess. But in recent years, all have been revolutionized as chocolatiers complement the art of making chocolate with the art of finding beans.
The precise sourcing of cocoa beans from previously unimagined corners of the tropics has led to new palettes of flavors and complicated labels. In response, chocolate lovers have become ever more demanding, as they calibrate the cocoa content of their candy bars and crave fresh flavor combinations.

Beschle 'Milk and White' collection.

Now, for a small group of aficionados with a bit of time and a lot of spare change, that novelty has come home to roost. Some of Europe's premier chocolate labels are offering a bespoke service that allows customers to adjust the look and tweak the taste of their truffles and pralines. With firms like Switzerland's Confiserie Sprüngli and Belgium's Mary, chocolatier to the Belgian royal family, willing to collaborate with clients, it is as if Château Mouton Rothschild decided to let customers design their own wine bottle, or ramp up the Cabernet Franc in their personal cuvée.
These chocolate makers often require a substantial minimum order, measurable in the tens of kilograms, and delivery times of a month or more. But if you get started now, you can have a unique and delicious holiday present for a few lucky friends and family members.

The Weekend Gift Guide

• Tina Gaudoin on Style: For a Merry Little Christmas
• Collecting: A New Old Look
• Will Lyons on Wine: Pleasing Tools for the Picky Wine Buff
• Bruce Palling on Food: Five Holiday Treats
• Design: How to Deck Your Halls
• Design: Creating an Impression
• Books: Speaking Volumes

Before the era of single-estate bars and tamarind-laced ganaches, Sprüngli's freshly made truffes du jour were the ne plus ultra of the chocolate world. Sprüngli is still tempting chocolate lovers with its truffles, but the company now also lets you get in on the act by specifying select flavors or ingredients, as well as shapes and decoration. "There are no limits," says Sprüngli Chief Executive Tomas Prenosil. Past orders have included pralines in the shape of racing cars. Sometimes, just changing the form can create a subtle new flavor. "Shape can affect taste," he says. Clients in the Middle East and India like to have bespoke packaging, like treasure chests of chocolates wrapped in silk.

Mary 'Caraques Noir'

Sprüngi's in-house chocolatiers will send you a prototype batch to sample before filling and shipping your request. It will consider orders as small as five kilograms, says Mr. Prenosil, but costs typically run between 3,000 Swiss francs and 5,000 francs (€2,490-€4,150).
Other artisanal Swiss chocolate makers offering bespoke services include Basel's Beschle, a traditional family firm, and Läderach, located in a village in the canton of Glarus, with a strong following in Switzerland and Germany. Beschle requires a minimum order of 50 kilograms, at about €60 per kilo, for personalized ingredients, and 10 francs a praline to customize the look of the chocolate. Läderach has a 500-piece minimum, which you can then distribute into some two dozen 18-piece boxes; price depends on ingredients.
In Belgium, Flanders's master chocolatier, Frederic Blondeel, has garnered attention for his use of herbs and spices. He whips up his creations on the Belgian coast, where he lives, and sells them at his flagship shop in Brussels. His chocolates with coriander ganache aren't being made this season, but he will concoct a special batch for you (30-kilogram minimum, at €60 per kilo). He also offers a wider bespoke service upon request—and consideration. "Sometimes I refuse," he admits.

Amedei 'Porcelana' chocolate bar.

Don't expect to find any newfangled flavors at Mary, the Brussels chocolatier. "We do the reverse," says Olivier Borgerhoff, Mary's managing director. He says Mary is "the most traditional chocolate maker in Belgium," with some recipes dating back 90 years. Everything is handmade, so bespoke orders are easy—if Mary agrees. "We do what interests us," says Mr. Borgerhoff. "If a king or a president asks us to make something special, we will." For bespoke orders, he says, "write us an email or call us up." Once a week, the staff meet and consider requests. Orders are pricey, even by bespoke standards: "We will probably start at €5,000 for 50 kilos."
In France, Patrick Roger offers a bespoke service, and even Jacques Genin, the self-taught genius of French chocolate, is open to customizing his creations. "If someone wants a special order," says his spokesperson, Emmanuelle Gillardo, "Jacques could do it."
Many fine chocolatiers, however, aren't open to suggestion. Amedei, Tuscany's high-end chocolate maker, won't consider creating a special flavor or adding a certain ingredient. But the company will consider requests for bespoke wrapping of its chocolate bars, like the "Porcelana," made of Venezuelan Criollo beans and considered the world's most exclusive chocolate bar, currently selling online for €13.80.
For a personalized selection of Europe's best artisanal chocolate, consider looking across the Atlantic and ordering your gifts from San Francisco's CocoaBella Chocolates, where you can combine Läderach and Mary with chocolate from Italy's Maglio, and then add in the best of America's growing artisanal chocolate scene, which includes Kansas City, Mo.'s Christopher Elbow, whose caramels feature strawberries and balsamic vinegar. CocoaBella will deliver by courier to Europe, with shipping costs starting at around $150 (€117).
Christine Olson Giebel, a self-described chocolate lover in California's Silicon Valley, says she regularly sends out personalized combinations of chocolate from CocoaBella. "They have the world's best purveyors all under one roof," she says, "and there is nothing like the gift of chocolate."

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Protecting the Brand

Kettle Sets Out on Mission to Disprove Imitators

Foodie-aimed Campaign Declares Brand Originated Chip Style

Published: November 25, 2012

Born in 1982, Kettle Brand potato chips pioneered the kettle-cooked style in which unpeeled spuds are fried in small batches to produce a crispier chip.
But recently the marketer has found itself in a crunch as competitors big and small adopt the same style, with equal -- and in some cases better -- sales results. Kettle is fighting back with a campaign called "The Real Kettle Chips" and repositioning itself to target foodies, who might care about the chips' authenticity more than the mainstream market Kettle had been going after.

While 92% of salty-snack consumers know about the kettle style, only 46% are aware of the Kettle brand, according to Kettle's research. In other words, the style it created became bigger than the brand. "That told us right away that ... it was really important to remind consumers that Kettle Brand is really a pioneer of this segment," said Marc McCullagh, who manages Kettle for owner Diamond Foods.
Kettle's campaign, which makes its debut in December, includes ads boasting that "other chips can copy our style but they'll never have our substance." Ads will also plug its home base of Willamette Valley, Ore., noting that's where Kettle has been "batch-cooked for over 30 years." Origin is an increasingly important attribute for food brands, especially among the food elites Kettle is targeting.
The campaign, by Deutsch, Los Angeles, will include digital and print buys on foodie publications including Bon Appetit, Epicurious.com and Foodnetwork.com. The previous effort, called "Nobody Likes Them, They Love Them," targeted a broader audience with TV ads and free-standing inserts. On a recent earnings call, Diamond CEO Brian Driscoll said the brand's previous strategy of discounting in search of top-line growth hurt margins. "We believe that this brand can grow, expand and maintain its inherent premium price positioning best by staying true to and investing into what it stands for," he said.
Kettle, with its colorful packaging and innovative flavors, such as Spicy Thai, has had decent growth. Sales jumped 8.6% to $176 million in the 52 weeks ended Oct. 7, placing it eighth in the chip market with 2.64% share, according to SymphonyIRI. But it has been passed by Frito-Lay's "Kettle Cooked" variety, which launched in 2000 and now controls 4.96% share after 17% growth in the past year. Even private-label brands such as 7-Eleven have embraced the kettle style.
Kettle is also differentiating itself by emphasizing its "all-natural" ingredients. In October, the brand announced that 16 of its flavors had achieved verification from the Non-GMO Project, which tracks foods that don't contain genetically modified ingredients. Kettle claims to be the first chip brand to achieve that distinction and plans to plug the verification on labeling beginning in January.
Diamond, which also owns Emerald nuts and Pop Secret, is seeking to boost Kettle during a rough time at the company. Diamond recently had to restate earnings results from 2010 and 2011 due to accounting irregularities related to payments to walnut growers.

Pumpkin: Hot Flavor

Everything’s Coming Up Pumpkin Pie

By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

DURING Thanksgiving week, the aroma of pumpkin pie wafts throughout the land, as it has for generations. But these days, chances are the source of the smell is not actually pie.

While Starbucks, now serving its seasonal pumpkin spice latte for the ninth year, is often credited with helping popularize the flavor, pumpkin spice has spread to myriad categories.

There were 79 limited-time menu items featuring pumpkin at the top 250 restaurant chains from August through October, more than double the 37 during the same period in 2011, according to Technomic, a restaurant market research firm.

Those dishes included pumpkin bagels at Bruegger’s Bagel Bakery, pumpkin ale at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse and pumpkin spice pancakes at Shoney’s.

“Pumpkin,” a New York magazine headline declared in October, “is the new bacon.”

Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, said comfort foods often influenced flavor trends.

“That familiarity and comfort feel is something that I think Americans are clinging to because the economy has been rough on many of us,” Mr. Tristano said, adding that such foods represented “a nice, simple pleasure and an affordable indulgence.”

It may not occur to a diner at McDonald’s washing down pumpkin pie with a pumpkin shake or pumpkin spice latte, but flavor trends are not cooked up by food brands alone. Companies that specialize in flavors often are the instigators.

Dianne Sansone, a flavor chemist and head of technical services at Flavor and Fragrances Specialties, which is based in Mahwah, N.J., said the company first developed a pumpkin spice flavor in the early 1990s for a coffee brand, well before use of the flavor became widespread. Nondisclosure agreements prohibit the company from naming customers, but its Web site says they include both “Fortune 100” and “middle market” companies.

Typically food brands provide a base, like unflavored ice cream or yogurt, and in a subsequent presentation Flavor and Fragrances serves company representatives samples to demonstrate how a flavor like pumpkin spice tastes in their product.

What companies end up buying is not just a recipe, but a physical product as well.

“We send out 400-pound drums of flavor that go into things like coffee and cupcakes and cookie filling,” Ms. Sansone said.

Yoplait, a General Mills brand, asked consumers on its Facebook page in 2011 for new flavor preferences, and as a result introduced Yoplait Light pumpkin pie yogurt as a seasonal flavor this year.

Elizabeth Fulmer, associate marketing manager of Yoplait, said sales of the flavor far exceeded expectations.

“We didn’t know how big it was going to be,” she said. “We did this as a little bit of an experiment this year and the response has been really exciting.”

Planters, a Kraft Foods brand, introduced pumpkin spice almonds as a seasonal flavor in 2011, the same year that Jet-Puffed marshmallows, another Kraft brand, introduced a pumpkin spice variety.

Through a licensing agreement, Unilever introduced Starbucks pumpkin spice latte ice cream as a seasonal variety this year. It is, in other words, an ice cream based on a coffee drink that was based on a pie. Another Unilever ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry’s, has marketed a seasonal pumpkin cheesecake flavor for several years.

Hiram Walker introduced pumpkin spice liqueur, a seasonal offering, in 2007, when the flavor “was popular within coffee but not as widespread as it is today,” said Juli Falkoff, a brand manager at the company, which is a Pernod Ricard USA brand. “I feel like this season it’s really pumpkin spice time — it’s everywhere you look.”

It may seem paradoxical, but pumpkin spice products often lack a pumpkin note, connoting instead spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove that are sold as the pumpkin pie blend in spice aisles.

Coffee brands, among the first to introduce pumpkin spice flavors in products that are not baked, continue to experience strong demand.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which introduced a seasonal pumpkin spice coffee in 2001, has in recent years begun selling it in early August instead of later in the month because of pent-up demand.

Derek Archambault, senior brand manager at Green Mountain, says that in the first week it is sold each year, it often is the best-selling flavored coffee and occasionally the best-selling roast overall.

Along with Starbucks pumpkin spice latte ice cream, the company introduced an instant coffee version of the flavor this year under its Via line. When some stores, primarily in Manhattan, ran out of what Starbucks calls the sauce used to flavor the pumpkin spice latte in October, a flurry of panicked messages from fans appeared on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Passé, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said there was never an actual shortage because warehouses remained well stocked. Rather, she said, individual stores had “outages” for a day or two because of the popularity of the flavor.

“This year we saw such increased demand that it’s in the running to be the No. 1 seasonal flavor for the entire year,” said Ms. Passé. In recent years, she added, the top seasonal flavor was peppermint mocha, a winter item.

But some recently released products flavored with pumpkin pie spice have left consumers scratching their heads.

One such offering came from the Kellogg brand Pringles, which introduced a seasonal variety of its stackable potato chips this month that is available only at Walmart.

“Pumpkin Spice Pringles?” the Twitter user @emptychampagne wrote, expressing a sentiment echoed by many on social networks and blogs. “I give up. There is no hope for the future. None.”

Online Sales Soar

Online sales soar on Black Friday

By Barney Jopson in New York

©Bloomberg

Online sales jumped more than 20 per cent in the US at the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season as the growing use of tablet computers fuelled “couch commerce”.

Black Friday internet sales climbed 26 per cent on a year ago, to $1bn, according to ComScore, while IBM, using a different methodology, recorded a 21 per cent increase.

The figures came as the US retail federation reported stronger sales across all forms of retail than many analysts had expected, suggesting that improvements in the job and stock markets could be boosting spending.

The most visited retail site on Friday was Amazon, the dominant internet-only retailer, but next in the top five were the websites of three bricks-and-mortar stores – Walmart, Best Buy and Target – followed by Apple, according to ComScore.

Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year but Capital Economics research has shown it is not a reliable indicator of total holiday season spending, which can account for 20-40 per cent of retailers’ annual sales.

The ease of shopping on tablet computers encouraged more so-called “couch commerce”, with purchases on mobile devices accounting for 16 per cent of all online transactions and iPads alone making up 10 per cent, IBM said.

But although more people took to the internet, the average spend per person fell 4.7 per cent to $181 and the average number of purchases fell 12 per cent to 5.6, according to IBM.

The National Retail Federation said total retail sales rose 13 per cent from last year to $59bn over the four days from Thanksgiving to Sunday.

Although the 139m people who shopped were 8m more than last year, they were fewer than the NRF’s forecast of 147m.

After the Thanksgiving weekend, US retailers typically offer a blizzard of online discounts on what has come to be known as Cyber Monday, but its relevance has been diluted by the decision of many to start unveiling deals last week. Amazon began last Monday.

To counter the trend of consumers shopping online during Thanksgiving on Thursday, several retailers – including Walmart and Target – opened their stores earlier than ever with big discounts on Thursday night.

Order Barney Jopson’s startling account of the hidden influence and boundless ambition of Amazon, overlord of a mini-economy that goes well beyond online shoppers

The decision to open early pulled shopping trips forward, resulting in sales at bricks-and-mortar stores on Black Friday falling 1.8 per cent from a year ago to $11.2bn, according to separate estimates from ShopperTrak – the first drop since 2008.

But consistent with the NRF, Bill Martin, ShopperTrak’s founder, said that sales on Thursday and Friday combined would exceed last year’s figure, although specific data for Thursday were not yet available.

“You really saw savvy shopping,” said Jay Henderson, strategy director at IBM’s Smarter Commerce division, noting that consumers had scoured carefully for the best discounts.

He said bricks-and-mortar retailers were “working hard to combine what they do in-store with what they do online”.

Walmart, which is trying to stop losing business to Amazon, offered early access to discounts for consumers who downloaded its mobile app, liked it on Facebook or signed up for email alerts.

Gangnam Style: US Navy

Vending Machines

Caviar-Dispensing Vending Machine Opens At Burbank Towne Center

November 23, 2012 2:22 PM

 

(credit: Gourmet Tfood/Facebook)

BURBANK (CBSLA.com) — Caviar is not the usual fare one would expect from a vending machine.
Beverly Hills Caviar has unveiled its first touch-screen vending machine at the Burbank Towne Center, offering “a large selection of the world’s finest selection of caviar, truffles, escargot, bottarga, blinis, oils, Mother of Pearl plates and spoons, gift boxes and gourmet salts.”
Prices range from under $50 up to $500, KNX 1070’s Vytas Safroncikas reports.

“Oh my God, too expensive for me. I can’t afford that,” one passersby said of the products offered by the vending machine.
All manner of products are now being offered via vending machine – ranging from the usual fare of candy, snacks and soda all the way to pricey electronics like iPods and iPhones – but fresh foods seem to be the latest trend.

Earlier this year, the LA-based cupcake bakery that started the cupcake craze began dispensing the treats via an ATM called 24-Hour Sprinkles.
“Yeah, I can think of probably better things I can buy out of a vending machine than fish eggs,” another passersby said.
Curious to try the automatically-dispensed caviar? The vending machine is at Burbank Towne Center mall, 201 E. Magnolia Blvd., on the second floor across from Bath and Body Works and operates daily from 7 a.m. till 2 a.m.

Black Friday Winners

Target, Amazon Poised to Win Black Friday

Consumers Perceive Retailers as Having Best Value

By: Natalie Zmuda Published: November 21, 2012

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Love it or hate it, Black Friday is all about the deals. Consumers will storm stores as soon as doors open -- as early as Thursday morning, this year -- in order to snag must-have gifts at rock-bottom prices. And many will spend a significant portion of their holiday budgets, projected to be $750 for the average consumer. The National Retail Federation expects overall holiday sales will increase 4.1% to $586.1 billion.

Retailers perceived to have the best values will come out on top. This year, Amazon and Target continue to reign in that category, according to YouGov BrandIndex. Amazon took the No. 1 slot, while Target took the No. 2 slot for the second year in a row. Target scored points by being the first retailer to air holiday ads this year, despite some complaints it was kicking off the holiday too early. The ad, featuring its mascot Bullseye and airing in mid-October, helped it notch one of the biggest gains in value perception this year.
Old Navy is another big winner, rising from No. 9 to No. 6 in value perception. The retailer's marketing has been choppy in recent years, and it's been without a chief marketer for nearly 18 months. But a recent series of ads meant to appeal to its target customer with 1990s-era TV characters, such as "Blossom" and the cast of "90210," have been a hit. Old Navy, along with Gap Inc. siblings Banana Republic and Gap, gained the most in value perception year over year, though the latter two still rank outside of the top 10.
JC Penney, however, continues to fall from grace. The retailer, in the midst of a major reinvention in which it eschews coupons, fell from No. 3 to No. 5. New holiday ads seek to reiterate value, however, calling out specific prices for a variety of seasonal items and gifts.
Best Buy and Sears have also taken a hit when it comes to value perception. The electronics giant has suffered a series of management changes in the last year and is struggling to attract customers shifting electronics purchases to retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart. Sears, meanwhile, has been heavily promoting its layaway program, though that doesn't seem to have changed consumers' minds about the chain.
Walmart's layaway efforts are resonating, however. The retail giant jumped from No. 6 to No. 3 in value perception. Its layaway program kicked off Sept. 16, adding categories such as small home appliances and sporting goods. 

Walmart VS Target

Target's Turkey Dinner Cheaper Than Walmart's

Recent reports suggest that Target might have a slight edge over Walmart heading into the holiday season largely because its consumer base is more affluent than its larger rival.

That said, the price competition between the two rivals remains intense and each side is using matching and aggressive advertising to establish itself as the place where consumers can go to save.
In reality, it's possible to cherry pick any number of items and make the lowest price case for either Target or Walmart. Thanks to an analysis by Bloomberg Industries, however, Target gets a win when it comes to the lowest price on Thanksgiving dinner.
Bloomberg looked at a market basket of 18 items including turkey and sides at 15 retailers on Nov. 17 and 18 including Acme (Supervalu), Sam's Club, Target, The Fresh Market, Walmart and Whole Foods. Pricing for the same items were $36.39 at Sam's, $45.48 at Target, $52.31 at Walmart, $70.18 at Whole Foods, $70.82 at Acme and $81.20 at The Fresh Market.
Target's pricing was able to undercut Walmart through the use of more aggressive promotions, according to Bloomberg.
"Target has been pretty clear, through their actions, that they want to have a very competitive holiday season so it's not surprising that it translated over to food," Jennifer Bartashus, a Bloomberg Industries analyst, told Bloomberg News.
Target's president and CEO Gregg Steinhafel, according to The Associated Press, recently discussed the chain's prospects for the fourth quarter. "We feel good about our ability to deliver inspiring merchandise, most-wanted gifts, and unbeatable value, while also generating expected profitability."
Walmart's chief financial officer Charles Holley was quoted in the same AP report as saying, "Macroeconomic conditions continue to pressure our customers."

Wegmans Tweets

       Wegmans Customers Thankful for Tweets

Wegmans is known for helping its customers expand their holiday season culinary horizons through recipes, food preparation videos, its monthly Menu magazine, online chats and — for the second year in a row — Twitter.

The grocer's executive chef Mark Makovec has gone online with some technical assistance to answer customer's questions tweeted to @Wegmans or the #Turkey911 hashtag.
Chef Makovec told Your News Now in Rochester that many consumers make a complete turkey only once a year and, that combined with all the sides involved in Thanksgiving dinner, the task can cause a lot of anxiety. His job is to help shoppers bust the stress.
"You get a lot of people all of a sudden where the light turns on and they say, 'I never thought of that. I've never done that before,' and it makes cooking so much easier," he said.
Wegmans turned to Twitter for the first time last year after receiving "an incredible amount of calls" about Thanksgiving.
Courtney Briggs, internet marketing coordinator at Wegmans, translates the chef's responses into Tweets.
"Twitter might be a specialized social media tool, but it's really just another way to talk to a customer," Ms. Briggs told WHEC.com. "It's the same experience you would have walking up to a chef in the store. This might be a little abbreviated to get to that 140 characters, but it's still two people connecting together, just in a new way."

Showrooming

80% of Retailers to be Affected by Showrooming

Brick and mortar retailers are painfully aware of the impact of showrooming — the act of consumers using their mobile phones in-store to compare prices with competing retailers — on their bottom line. However, only 10 percent of retailers have strategies in place to combat showrooming, according to a new research study from Edgell Knowledge Network (EKN), in partnership with eBay Local.

EKN’s latest research report, “The Impact of Showrooming on the 2012 Holiday Season,” is based on a retail industry survey fielded to all merchant segments, except grocery, to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of showrooming and retailers’ ability to address it during the 2012 holiday season.

Showrooming is a year-round occurrence; however, holiday season sales are a leading indicator of retail industry performance and consumer sentiment. Focusing on showrooming’s expected impact during the holiday shopping season provides a window into what its overall effect will be in 2013 and beyond.

The research report includes good news for holiday sales overall, as 63 percent of merchant respondents expect 2012 holiday season sales to show an increase compared to the 2011 season. According to the survey’s findings, though, showrooming will take a toll on many retailers’ performances:

• 80 percent of retailers expect to be impacted by showrooming; they expect the average loss of sales to be 5 percent — a significant number, given the low margins in many retail segments.
• Electronics and appliances were the unanimous choice as the retail format most vulnerable to showrooming.
• Price-matching and improved cross-channel integration emerged as the most effective strategies to counter showrooming. However, only 25 percent of respondents reported full integration between their store and online channels, and only 15 percent share their inventory online — indicating a major opportunity for retailers to take measures to lessen showrooming’s impact.

“Showrooming is a phenomenon that’s here to stay. One in four shoppers used their mobile phones to compare prices while in the store during the 2011 holiday season, and those numbers will only grow,” said Gaurav Pant, research director, EKN. “But the good news is that retailers can put strategies in place to help counter the effects of showrooming by engaging showroomers actively, integrating their online and offline channels, and prioritizing their investments to counter showrooming.”

“The Impact of Showrooming on the 2012 Holiday Season” includes specific recommendations for both immediate and long-term tactics and strategies to help retailers combat showrooming, and can serve as a blueprint to help retailers put the most effective programs in place. It is available for download here.

Amazon: Counterfeit Products

Amazon Marketplace Named Largest Counterfeit Outlet

Calling Cyber Monday one of the biggest days for online fraud, the Consumer Fraud Center, a counterfeit goods consumer information center, issued its Annual Cyber Monday Alert to warn consumers of the proliferation of counterfeit goods and products sold through legitimate online retailers and portals.  Amazon Marketplace earned the dubious distinction of having the largest potential for counterfeits sold primarily because of the ease it takes to open up a virtual storefront.

"According to the International Chamber of Commerce, the global trade in counterfeited consumer goods is estimated to range as high as 7 percent and one of the fastest growing segments is the sale of counterfeit products sold through legitimate online portals such as Amazon Marketplace where lax monitoring and enforcement can snare unsuspecting consumers," said James Lee, executive director of the Consumer Fraud Center. "We strongly urge consumers to exercise caution when buying through these largely unregulated marketplaces and compare pricing with the manufacturer. If you're getting deals of more than 20 percent, a red flag should go up in the consumer's mind."

Cyber Monday has quickly grown into the single-largest online shopping day of the year. Last year, comScore, Inc. estimated sales at $1.25 billion, a 22 percent increase from 2010, with this year's Cyber Monday promising a similar increase due to pent-up consumer demand stifled by the long economic recession.

The Consumer Fraud Center gave Amazon Marketplace its highest warning alert because of a recent flood of consumer complaints over counterfeited products. Consumers were most distressed over the perceived authenticity conferred to counterfeiters because of Amazon's allowance for them to utilize its sales, warehousing and distribution systems.

"With over 600 complaints received just about Amazon Marketplace, many included how counterfeit products were shipped in Amazon boxes giving the impression they were legitimate products, as well as the lack of consumer education and warnings on Marketplace about the threat of counterfeit goods," Lee said. "It was stunning for us to hear how difficult it was for consumers to distinguish between an independent reseller and a legitimate retailer or manufacturer on Amazon. That confusion sets the stage for abundant mischief."

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates online shopping to account for more than $222.5 billion in sales in the United States (as of 2009) with the five largest categories of items sold online being:

1. Music and videos (83.7%)

2. Electronics and appliances (80.4%)

3. Books and magazines (76.4%)
4. Furniture and home furnishings (75.2%)

5. Clothing and accessories (74.9%)

"For years, news media have tracked reports of illegal and fraudulent sales through Amazon Marketplace. These consumer complaints have reached a crescendo since implementation of the 'Fulfillment by Amazon' program," Lee said. "In fact, we have begun encouraging journalists and news outlets to test the system themselves and see how easy it is to create a storefront and sell a counterfeit product."

Amazon's Marketplace has long been criticized by consumer activists for its lax monitoring controls and lack of proper disclaimers educating shoppers as to the dangers of buying from independent sellers, Lee said. He contended online shoppers need to follow a few simple rules to protect themselves:

• Beware the discount: Consumers need to be on guard if they find deals with discounts that seem too good to be true. Discounts steeper than 20 percent than what a large discount retailer such as Wal-Mart or Costco offers should be an indicator to the consumer they need to exercise caution;
• Check the product: If after buying a product a consumer has concerns, check for a serial number and ask the manufacturer. Counterfeiters often will not go to the trouble of generating unique serial numbers for every product;
• Compare reviews and customer feedback: Check to see if a product's reviews include terms such as "knock off," "fake" or "counterfeit." It can be a tip-off if the site is selling counterfeit versions or if a product's ratings are substantially lower on a reseller's storefront compared to ratings on a verified merchandise site. Check consumer reviews and posted comments since on fake websites, those comments are often erased, but on legitimate sites, consumers can easily warn each other of fakes;
• Spread the word: Submit counterfeit purchases to the Consumer Fraud Center and other consumer protection websites such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center, and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (www.iprcenter.gov/referral) so consumers can be warned;
• Who is emailing you: Online sales confirmations should come directly from the website where you make your purchase. If you receive your sales confirmation from someone using a free email service such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL, be aware that a counterfeiter may be at work;
• Spelling bee fails: Grammar and spelling mistakes dot the product descriptions, which is evidence of improper translations from English for overseas cybercriminals, especially from Chinese manufacturers; and
• Where is your stuff coming from: Manufacturers almost never allow their products to be shipped directly from China to consumers. Shipments from China account for nearly 90 percent of counterfeit goods entering the country, so if your order is advertised as coming from China, or if it arrives from China, contact the manufacturer to see if the product is authentic. Pay particular attention on sites like Amazon, which now permits "fulfillment" of orders directly from China.