Facts or Flavor?
Posted on October 5, 2009 | Permalink
By Lane Casteix
My pet chickens think I am a rooster, and it isn’t because I look like one; it is their perception of me. Much like a real rooster I take care of my hens and provide them with food, shelter, and protection – and lots of tasty treats. I satisfy their most basic needs, but do you think that is the reason they like me?
“Hey, there’s the ‘rooster’ that built our coop, feeds us and protects us! Let’s go show some gratitude!”
When I walk outside they come running and are very interested in me, until they figure out I am not holding a dish of treats like grapes or watermelon.
More likely they thought, “Hey, there is our ‘rooster’, and maybe he has some delicious treats for us!”
Successful brands are perceived as “roosters” in that they fulfill some deep personal desire in their customers. Is your marketing offering your customers facts or flavor?
Who needs a rooster?
Posted on October 7, 2009 | Permalink
By Lane Casteix
Did you know you can get eggs from a hen without the rooster? (Kind of distressing for us males, when you think about that.) The rooster is a “logical requirement” for the process, but the “roosterless” egg is just as high in nourishment, just as tasty, and even more desirable by me (no rooster to wake me or my neighbors up).
A successful brand often does not have a logic component. My hens “sing the egg song” when they are about to lay an egg. The emotional content is there for them without the logic component.
Solid successful brands are not always logical. Is Harley Davidson logical? You can buy cheaper bikes and even better ones, but HD is an enduring brand that defies logic, because its customers have a deep emotional attachment to the brand.
Heart trumps logic.
What Can Chickens Teach Us About Packaging?
Posted on October 19, 2009 | Permalink
By Lane Casteix
Some of you know I have become a “chicken rancher” after reading an article in the New Orleans Times Picayune about urban chickens. It is becoming quite popular to raise your own chickens for eggs even in urban settings. My flock consists or three Rhode Island Red laying hens I bought as two-day old chicks and raised myself. They live in a luxurious (for chickens anyway) coop I built for them that keeps them dry, safe, and cozy. The coop and fenced run cost me a small fortune, even though I used some recycled materials. As a result, these eggs are not cheaper than buying them in the store! But they are very good: richer-colored orange yokes, firmer less runny texture, and more flavor. I eat lots of eggs, but three chickens lay more than I can eat; so I give eggs away and make others happy like me.
I have been posting about my chickens on Facebook, and for no particular reason other than it seemed like fun. But as this process moved along, I began to realize that chickens, dumb as they are, can teach us many things as posted here and here. For example: Is there a package more perfect than the egg? It is elegantly simple in design, effective in protecting its valuable contents, pilfer-evident yet easy to open, and is sustainable green. What more could you ask for? Let’s take these one at a time.
Elegantly simple design –
The most effective package designs, from the standpoint of marketing and sales, are those that convey their message to the consumer without unnecessary bravo sierra messing up an otherwise tidy design. The egg communicates, and it does it very elegantly! It tells the chicken it needs protection and nurturing. There are exceptions for pure layers like mine; they lay the egg and shake out their feathers and walk away to feed and make another one, somehow expecting the egg to disappear, picked up by the egg gatherer.
The egg tells the egg gatherer, be he a person or a predator looking for a free meal, that he just found food. I bet someone or something that never saw an egg before would conclude this strange object was indeed food.
And if you think they can’t be branded, you are wrong. Different chickens lay different eggs. They may be different sizes and shapes, white, brown, spotted, or speckled; and there is even a breed, the Ameracuna, that lays colored eggs - pastel blues and greens, which is why they are also called “Easter-eggers”.
The egg conveys its core brand message without undue fuss. I wish all packages were that simple and that elegant of design.
Effective contents protection –
They look fragile but they are not. When I was a mere lad I read somewhere, probably “Boy’s Life”, that you could toss an egg over the roof of a house, and assuming it did not land on something really hard like concrete or my sister’s head, it would not break. Yeah, right! So, I tried it. I conducted my egg experiment at our summer home in Mississippi, which had an abundance of pine trees in the yard and not a lot of grass, at least not a thick layer. (My dad liked it that way; less grass to cut.) I tossed that puppy over the house and guess what? It DID NOT break! I did it twice – same results. That is tough! Then my mother caught me and took my egg away to serve for breakfast.
The egg comes out of the chicken with a wet coating, which is called a “bloom”. It dries in a matter of seconds; almost like it is alcohol. The bloom provides protection for the egg against invasion by micro-organisms through the porous shell, so you don’t wash eggs when you collect them. Eggs, unwashed and unrefrigerated, will keep for an amazingly long time with very little loss of quality.
Pilfer evident yet easy to open –
It is pretty obvious when the egg’s package has been compromised; the shell is cracked and often oozing. And if the compromise took place some time ago your nose supports the obvious visual clues.
But they are easy to open too. Some shells are harder than others, depending on how much calcium the chicken has consumed. Grocery store eggs tend to be thin shelled, having come from “egg-machines” living out brief lives in cramped spaces bordering on miserable. I feed my happy chickens grapes, strawberries, and cracked corn with their laying mix, and they get to free range and consume the big juicy and delicious (for a chicken) wood roaches we have all over south Louisiana. I also feed them crushed oyster shells for extra calcium. They self-regulate how much they need, and my chicken’s eggs require a goodly smack to crack the shell. (Bet I could toss them over a two-story house!) All packages should be this pilfer evident and yet this easy to open.
Sustainable green –
Can’t get any “greener” than an eggshell. They are organic in origin and can be easily recycled back into the bio-system, either as mulch in your garden or fed back to the chicken for reprocessing. Yes, chickens will eat their own eggshells, but it is best not to serve them up looking much like the whole egg, lest they figure out they don’t have to wait for you to bring the shells back. It is the ultimate returnable! And no deposit – unless you count the grapes, strawberries and chicken feed.
So, what do we have? Packaged goods producers and package designers can take lessons from the egg. Effective packaging need not always be complex and complicated. Simple is much better and more effective. (Someday, maybe I will get to design an egg-elegant package?)
Chickens make eggs, and man makes clamshell packaging. Have we have lost our packaging way?
Prospering in a Down Economy, Part 5
Posted on October 28, 2009 | Permalink
By Lane Casteix
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
As you can see from the links above, I have written about businesses prospering in a down economy. Those that do prosper are the ones who don't pull in their marketing efforts but see the weak economy as a chance to steal market share.
And low and behold here comes evidence from this recession for what I have been preaching.
