Brand Awareness

Brand Awareness and buzz is only significant if you know how and when it will effect your bottom line.

Photo from: www.asgren.com

Recipes: Slow-Cooked Meatballs in Herbed Tomato Sauce

I completely forgot to take photos of this wonderful meatball dish that I made yesterday evening out of ground beef that was lying in our freezer. I was skeptical that it would taste great (remember the tough hockey meat pucks with sweet tomato sauce?), but it had a nice crust, a delicious tomato-Parmesan sauce, and a nice juicy and fork-tender interior. The two secrets are (a) remember not to overmix the beef and (b) undercook the meatballs since it has to undergo a slow simmer for 20 minutes. This I think was the best meatball I have ever tasted…as of yet.

Here’s the recipe:

Slow Cooked Meatballs In Herbed Tomato Sauce

What you need:

For the meatballs, you would need (a) 1 kilo of ground beef, (b) 1 Egg, (c) 1 Large onion, diced (d) Parmesan cheese, grated, and the following seasonings to your taste: Herb de provence, Thyme, Salt, and Pepper, Sage and a dash of Balsamic vinegar.

For the tomato sauce, you would need (a) A can of whole tomatoes, (b) 1/2 cup of olive oil, (c) 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, (d) Bunch of Basil and season with salt and pepper.

How to Prepare:

1. Mix the beef with the egg, onion and seasonings. DO NOT OVERMIX. Overmixing causes the beef to become too tough. Form into balls and coat each ball with Parmesan cheese to get that brown outer crust.

2. In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil in medium heat and saute the meatballs until you form a crust. Undercook the meatballs for a couple of minutes (around medium rare). During the saute-ing process, add some rosemary springs into the pan.

3. Remove meatballs from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, add the tomatoes and the juice that comes with it. Make sure to scrape any brown bits from the pan, as it contains tons of flavor and provides depth to your dish. Add 1/2 cup of water and stir in Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes until sauce thickens.

4. Add the cooked meatballs in the pan with the omato sauce. Reduce the heat to ensure that only a few bubbles are seen from the top. Simmer for 20 minutes.

5. Before serving, remove the meatballs from the pan. For the sauce, add some chopped basil and drizzle with olive oil, similar to creating an emulsion. Drizzle sauce over meatballs and finish with more Parmesan cheese.

The Wine Club

I know I deftly skinned at Wine Depot’s SMS system during my first blog entries, but I have always been a fan of their direct marketing campaign. They make it a point to send me a text message every other week plus send me a couple of newsletters. I get regular updates with promos, events and a story on the wine industry. Though nothing original, they are the only wine vendor in Manila that is practices CRM (from online marketing until snail mail) and for that I applaud them. On their side, they would be able to match my demographics with my purchases and hopefully, later on, personalize how we do business from the newsletters I get and to the discounts that are tailor-fitted to what matters most to me. After all, we are going from an age of universality to the age of variability.

Above: June 2008 newsletter

But I was surprised when during the weekend I got a letter from my snail mail saying that I am now a Wine Club member PLUS card holder.

Well, technically I was already a Wine Club member, but having a card and flashing it around can entail me to get some incredible discounts. Which made me think – why did they send me the card just now when I enrolled almost a year ago? Oh well…no harm done. Love the layout of the newsletter, the early announcements and will enjoy using my Wine Club card. Thanks WineDepot!

FoodieBusiness Blogger – a ranter

In the past couple of posts, I have ranted and directly attacked some Manila-based establishments and then ranted some more. Three words – I LOVE IT (and then laughs with a booming cackle).

In this blog, I’ll really tell it as it is. If it sucks, it really does suck. If their White Chicken tastes like feet, I’ll say it tastes like feet. But if their service is gracious and wonderful, I’ll be more than happy to share my praises. The power of blogging…I’m not tied up with corporate sponsorships to review this restaurant or feature this brand. With stars or no stars – I’m telling!

Then, what makes me happy? Well at first it’s up to you, actually.

Got a surge of doing good and I’m asking YOU, dear reader, to suggest GREAT restaurants I can visit, review, and you think would make me post a joyous post.

Post your restaurant suggestions in the comment area.

The Book Hoarder

We have a corporate library full of business, design, marketing, leadership books and being the book-worm that I am, I gladly borrowed a majority of the lot. Now that I got so many great ideas from these books, I’m quite hesitant to return them.

Got an email: HR will post a wanted sign on overdue books and their criminal owners. Be warned.

Oh well…

P.S. The books I read, assessed and will return are (for your and for our HR’s reference, if they do read this):

Life’s Work by Francis Kong

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

Winning by Jack Welch

A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink

Creating Customer Evagelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

Guerrilla Publicity by Jay Conrad Levinson

The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

P.P.S. I am still keeping 3 books. I need it.

Good vs. Bad Restaurants

Just visited a restaurant at Blue Wave, Macapagal avenue at Pasay City to grab a quick dinner after our meeting and found a few points that I want to share that restaurants have to consider. Some of these details I have observed between the top and dying establishments within Manila.

a. A Streamlined Menu – A good restaurant ensures that their menu is easy to read with enough spaces in between per choice to see what each offering.

An example:

DO: Crispy Pata – P300

Sinigang – P 150

DON’T: Crispy pata – P300 Sinigang – P150

Having too much or a crowded menu shows your diner that you don’t have enough time to make consistently GREAT dishes and in reality, you really don’t. If you have 4 cooks, serving 20 Main course choices, 10 appetizers, 10 desserts, 10 soups, etc. with a changing cuisine. Who are we kidding? Even having 7 won’t manage it. Sure they can do it. But is it the freshest? The Best? Consistent?

Another bad that restaurateurs practice is spreading their cooks too thin by accommodating too many culinary genres. Such as Chinese dimsum in a coffee shop that serves American/Filipino food. Make up your mind on at MOST 2 cuisines and stick to it. I actually prefer just ONE. Be careful with cuisine fusions though. This not only solves the quality of food that you serve, but it also reduces the logistical and skill limitations you might be imposing on your chef. But still interested in serving Chinese food? Don’t do it in your American diner establishment. Make a separate restaurant. Trust me. Your chef and diners would love you for it.

ARGUMENT: What if diners tell you they want “this” in your establishment?

ANSWER: Think and assess. Does it match the food you currently serve with the cuisine you chose? If yes, assess if your chefs and your ingredients can be at par with excellence in serving the dish. If not, then choose an existing choice and remove and replace with the new one OR just scrap the suggestion. I don’t think diners will mind getting their superbly done steak compared to having a fish fillet that they suggested done poorly.

b. An Evolving Menu – Great restaurants stick to a theme with the food they serve, focused and consistent, but develops a menu that is always evolving. Don’t remove the best-selling Shrimp Cocktail, but if it’s not Mango season anymore – don’t serve the Mango Crepe. Master the seasons and ingredient cultivation. Know your ingredients. Focus on your theme. Evolve. Don’t stick your menu in a rut.

c. Tailor your Restaurant’s Identity – What is your restaurant being to your consumers? What is your waiters being that contributes to your restaurant’s identity? What are you being that contributes to the business? Normally I prefer chefs that tailor the decor and name of their restaurant with the theme of their cuisine. But you could also do it, vice versa, but be careful as decor themed-restaurants can become gimmicky, especially if you don’t serve good food.

If you are doing decor theme first before the food theme, make sure to incorporate the personality of your theme with the food by making it different and delectable. An example would be if you are a Halloween-themed coffee shop, why not have coffee shakes that actually bubble or orange? I haven’t had orange coffee before. Or a coffee blend with exotic spices? If a Halloween-themed restaurant serves regular beverage – heck, I’ll just go walk a bit longer to get a Frap.

d. Don’t play Chinese sing-along music in a coffee shop. – Enough said. Except if you’re a Chinese tea salon. But still no sing-along music.

e. Focus – If you are a coffee shop – serve the best damn coffee. If you are an American diner – serve the best damn pancakes. If you are a Filipino restaurant – serve the best damn Crispy Pata. Don’t serve beer (in buckets!) if you are a coffee shop, even if you are near bars. I see a Max’s or Starbucks nearby and they don’t serve beer in buckets! Why should you?

f. Consistency – Consistency is crucial in any restaurant. It is more crucial if your diner’s first experience was lovely in your establishment. Consumers loving that first experience or knows that when s/he orders Beef Sinigang, s/he would get the same sourness, same beef tenderness, etc. etc. Though they (diners) are willing to try new things, there is always a sense of comfort knowing that the dish you choose in your establishment would be the same – always.

g. Service – Great service a must. A service post in detail in the future. Remember, tailor your service to the identity the restaurant has.

Consider Yourself SPAM

I’m a fan of using email-based messaging and love how some companies like PinkBerry do it. Short, sweet, and value-laden content.

Another and very important consideration, to be as annoying-free as possible (and for me not to hit the SPAM button).

Show me how I got into this deal and how to get out.

Into Deconstruction

I’m into this new craze that I have to try and my friends and office colleagues all know what it is (me as a nuisance of course). For the next couple of weeks, I would be show-casing (if I do get my camera this month), a couple of recipes that I created that would fall into this theme.

The Thesis: Deconstruction

According to foodnetwork.com, “Deconstruction,” a term coined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, refers to a style of literary analysis where text is analyzed closely and dismantled into independent parts that, though they work in the context of, say, a paragraph, may contradict each other in and of themselves. Essentially, it’s a way at looking at the individual parts of a commonly-accepted whole, and how they interact with each other outside that whole.

Deconstruction can also fall into food, by dissecting the sum of parts of a particular recipe, whether it is roast beef, a martini, or even gaspacho. This technique is a booming development in the chef world and I can’t say I blame them. Deconstruction emphasizes each ingredient making sure they are at their best and ripest and ensuring a symphony of all components when the diner feast on their creation.

Wish me luck! Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Cycles Welcomes Lea Salonga

The “mom and their baby” market has vastly boomed for the last couple of years and is continually growing. Nivea has launched their own range of baby lotions, Splash has introduced their Baby Spa VCO liquid that turns into powder, and Baby diapers isn’t just Pampers anymore. Not to mention the growing range of toddler milk. Oh, there are even other products that promote getting baby soft skin – but that’s beside the point.

Where am I going with this?

Was invited to emcee a press conference to introduce Lea Salonga, world-renowned theater/movie actress and singer,  as the new brand ambassador for Cycles, the Hypoallergenic Laundry Detergent for Babies. The event was held at Tropezz (Greenbelt 3), from 10am-2pm on June 27, 2008.

Each guest was given a press kit (in USB form), giftpacks with assorted products from Naturale, and five winners got to bring home kiddie stuff such as motorized mini-cars, playpens and see-saws.

FAQ: What makes Cycles a show-stopper?
One – it has a targeted and willing market – moms.

Two – scent and packaging is pushed as being delicate, soft and baby-ish

Three – It looks imported – but the concept is Filipino and currently being exported to SEA countries.

Four – It’s hypoallergenic and machine usable. Moms who use Cycles minimize or have zero soap residue left in the clothes they wash with the detergent. No residue means its good for a baby’s sensitive skin. Anyway, have you ever tried using Perla in a washing machine? Cycles taps the side of the mom market that the leading detergents in Asia don’t even bother looking at.

Five – Branded and designed as premium (compared to other leading detergents’ prices). Moms don’t scrimp on their babies. But it’s sure value-friendly compared to the expensive U.S based baby friendly detergents.

(From Left to Right) Ligaya Salonga, Lea Salonga, Emily Balajadia, and Dennis Balajadia

Team Naturale Labs, Inc. and Eveolution, Inc., makers of Cycles

Cycles Hypoallergenic Laundry Detergent for Babies is available in 250ml and 1.5L (Liquid form) and 100g and 1kg (Powder Form)

Evolution, Inc.

376-2283

www.cyclesbaby.com

customercare@cyclesbaby.com

P.S. One crucial aspect of making your guests happy is by serving them good food and I was skeptical with what Tropezz would serve – seeing limited public responses about this establishment. But, they had great service, attentive floor managers, and tasty food. Though I wouldn’t want to serve all courses in one plate, for practical and time reasons, it was a good call.

Chocolate and Diet: The Results

After some debate on the flavor in line with the packaging and overall product positioning of our upcoming variant – we say NO to chocolate and diet.

How come?

It wasn’t as if it tasted bad. Actually it was the best flavor combination as of yet. The problem was the formulation of our variant was actually complicated in explaining how it made you slim. Also, we know chocolate and diet don’t usually go together. In result, if we placed Chocolate and Diet together, I would be having a problem promoting (a) chocolate and diet together, and (b) the complicated active ingredients.

Consumers can only get ONE SIMPLE idea from you. Having a complicated packaging explaining the tirade of chocolate and diet (or anything else, for that matter) and the active ingredients – consumers will just get the not-so original competitor and get on with their lives. And if your product is remarkable – they want to share your invention to their friends and family. If the product is too complicated with mixed messages, they’re going to have a more difficult time explaining it than you had promoting it.

Simple is the way to go. Thanks for people who emailed me about this.
P.S. I had a similar experience with a product I was helping to sell in college. We did so much time explaining to the consumers what our product was all about. In the end, not that much recall and not that much buzz.