THE CURIOUS CASE FOR THE KITCHEN FOOTPRINT
It’s best to fish where the fisherwomen are fishing

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Undoubtedly you care a great deal about the outcomes of your investments in food brand communications. What you want is measurable changes in attitude and behavior. Unfortunately at times what you get is the message missile missing the target’s receptivity. How so? There is a form of genetic code at work today that directs how humans connect with and act-upon communication from food brands. It has to do with context and environment, meaning where and when they are exposed to relevant information.

Messaging at the “Point of Behavior”

In Jonathan Salem Baskin’s book “Branding Only Works on Cattle” he aims to dispel myths about how consumers consume communication. His effort exposes the unintended ‘wishful thinking’ marketers may have embedded in an “if we build it they will definitely come” approach to brand communication.

Says Baskin: “If brand outreach doesn’t contain information relevant to my behavior at the moment I experience it, it’s unlikely that I’m going to file it away somewhere in my sub-conscious or use it in any meaningful way later on.”

• He goes on to say that presence (your brand message out there in general media venues) is not the same as recognition (your brand message received where its context has greater meaning and value).

The point: brand communication has a much better opportunity to impact behavior if it occurs at a time and place where the consumer is doing something that bears relationship to the message and outcome the brand is trying to create.

Case For The Kitchen Footprint…

In many ways food brands live in the kitchen, when viewed in the framework of where the consumer interacts and experiences them to prepare meals. If you fish where the fisherwomen (or men) are fishing, your brand communications optimally should occur not only in relevant media but also when food is being prepped and prepared by the preparer.

Share of Countertop

Consider the beauty of context and relevance at a point when it is most important to the target. “Share of Countertop” strategy recommends that food brands devote energy to creating a valuable, meaningful presence in the place and time where meals are being made. Social media integration, recipe sharing communities, booklets or cookbooks, “recipe help” mobile apps and desktop wigits -- cooking videos especially -- become important paths to engagement when viewed in this way.

The brand behavior objective is centered on getting the consumer to take action, which of course first requires engagement. Therefore your goal is: a kitchen presence in which brand experience and communication occurs together when food is naturally, behaviorally top of mind.

• How can you construct a useful footprint in the kitchen?

• What can you do to open the dialogue and conversation at the moment the food and taste subject matter is most meaningful?

• How can you integrate with your other media outreach, messaging and strategies?

• What about extending this approach to multiply the potential impact and value of investments in culinary brand experiences and events outside of the home?

Kitchen Commanders as we’ve come to know them are passionate about cooking. They enjoy it and receive emotional benefits from creating, learning, doing in the kitchen. Food brands that resolve to feed the passions and interests of these consumers should work creatively to acquire a larger Share of Countertop.

Closing the Loop at Retail

The other key ‘point of behavior’ is at the store shelf. So turning consumers into shoppers requires integration of brand outreach and retail strategies. The brand essence and experience must also translate at the point of purchase, and that means merchandising looms large as an integral part of this engagement path.

The same rules of relevance, help and support of the Kitchen Commanders’ passions around creative cooking apply equally to store level communication. The key here is not to separate but rather integrate brand and shopper strategies.

When the brand experience remains consistent across these touch points, and is grounded in relevance to the lifestyle interests of kitchen inhabitants, preference is created. And preference will drive sales.


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