Posts from — February 2009

So I am headin’ home from the World Ag Show. It actually doesn’t end til Thursday night, but I gots to get back to work.

Sittin’ in terminal 1 at SFO…there is a restaurant here called Perry’s. I usually get breakfast there when I fly out of here. As it was close to 11 am and I have been up since 5 am (to drive up from Fresno) I decided to have a Bloody Mary and a Club Sandwich.

The Bloody Mary was quite good. Can’t same the same for the club. It was very thick toast with a real good amount of medium sliced turkey…plenty of mayo…but severely lacking in BACON!!! I had one whole 1/4th that had NO BACON ON IT!!!

They stacked the turkey a mile high…but REALLY skimpy on the bacon.

I am putting you on notice Perry’s!! MORE BACON ON YOUR CLUB!!

The nerd news for this week is that there is NO NERD NEWS!

Seriously!!!

I was so focused with work that my normal nerd stuff got passed up.

So for this last week, I turn in my card!

This is really all I got…

While out here in Tulare (pronounced Too Lar E, not Too Lair, found that out quick)/ Fresno for the Ag Show, I did pick up two new Star Wars Mighty Muggs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got me Biggs and Bossk!  I love these things.  Look at that ‘stache on Biggs!  STYLIN’!

I’m not collecting all of them, just the ones I think are cool.

These were my first two… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SERIOUSLY, how can you not like these…look at that smile on Lando’s face…

So that’s it…all the nerdy from me this week.  I’ll have to make up for it when I get home!  Comic book, video game, cartoon and beer marathon!!

Weekly Deals for Detroit Area Stores – 2/9/09:*

Kroger - Kroger Bacon, Any Variety, 16 oz. (2 for $5 w/ card)

Meijer - Plumrose Sliced Bacon, 16 oz. (2 for $4)

Hiller’s – Smithfield Hardwood Smoked Bacon, 16 oz. ($2.99)

Busch’s – Nothing Advertised This Week

Go Get Some!!

Need to see another store on the list…let me know!

* I don’t believe in Wal-Mart, so if you grocery shop there, you’ll have to find out about the specials your own self!

Load in day the the World Ag Show yesterday…oh boy, this is a huge show!  Over 1,600 exhibitors and TOMCAR has a “little” 40 x 40 space.  Seriously, what would be a great space in any normal show is dwarfed by this show.  Actually set up went real well considering it was the first time we ever put this together.  I’ll have photos later in the week.

Not much around here for in terms of getting dinner.  Ended up going to Logan’s Steakhouse last night.  At least beer was cold.  Little surprise was the crisp, warm chopped bacon they put on their side salad.  Not having any bacon since Wednesday, it was, shall we say, YUMMY!

Over on our Facebook group, I announced “Bacon Sunday II“.

I’ve created Bacon Sunday to encourage people to set time for themselves, get together with family and/or their friends and enjoy a big ole breakfast!  That includes bacon of course   Stop by FB, join the group and just say “YES” to attending Bacon Sunday!

I received a bunch of links this week.  Thank you everyone, please keep them coming!  A good many of them were about Bacon Explosion.  Here are a few others:

• I don’t know if I could do this…but I am sure he’ll enjoy it!  Every sweet bite!
• How about some Coffee and Brown Sugar Bacon?  (Thanks Melissa - SHOUT OUT)
• This great piece of writing was found on my fellow wordpresser’s blog – Bacon Haikus.  A new one every day…I admire both the love for bacon AND how prolific they are! (Thx Courtney – SHOUT OUT)

Collins can feel it

Wafting in the air tonight

Don’t smell twice, bacon.

Some travel stuff…

The new terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport is FANTASTIC.  Clean, bright, colorful in punches, good mix of restaurants. I actually like it better than the McNamara terminal that was built a few years ago for Northwest (now Delta).

If you are going west and you have time, fly FRONTIER!!  You’ll always have a lay over in Denver out of Detroit, but there fares are usually pretty good and the have 32 channels of Direct TV!!  It sooooooo helps having TV on board.  Plus, for those who may not know, I am 6’5″ so flying for anything over 3 hours and I start getting uncomfortable and pretty crabby so I don’t mind the layover.  Three hours from DTW to Denver, 3 hours from Denver to SFO and all the time, SportsCenter!!!  Quick story – Better Half and I flew Frontier down to Puerto Vallarta last year and on the way home, the Wings were playing Dallas and scored a goal to go ahead late in the game and out came a YEAH!!! from my seat.  Completely forgot where I was and ended up scaring everyone around me (Think I may have even woke someone up).

That’s all today – going to get some breakfast and yes, bacon will be involved.

Last week, I showed you a photo and had a few links to the latest bacon recipe that was sweeping the interwebs.

Now, you can witness the building this monument to meat – The Bacon Explosion.

Thanks Suniel (SHOUT  OUT) for the link.

Coming to you LIVE from the Denver International Airport…

I am on my way to Tulare, CA by way of Denver to San Francisco then driving to Fresno. Why am I going through all these hoops to get to Tulare? I am attending the World Ag Show. That is right, the World Ag Show.

The fine company I work for, TOMCAR, is exhibiting at this show and showing off some new vehicles and accessories. I developed our new display and am heading out to make sure load-in goes smoothly and then to walk this show.

I am totally out of my element here. While I graduated from a fine “agriculutural” institution (Michigan State University, one of the original Land Grant colleges), I went and studied Telecommunications (essentially radio and TV).

What does this have to do with bacon? Well I figure the World Ag Show has to have some exhibitors who deal in pork and pork products. Reports coming throughout the week.

PS – I’d like to thank everyone for sending me some great links these last two weeks. It is VERY appreciated!

Thanks Adam for the link. (SHOUT OUT)

Click on the photo to watch the video from Fox 13 Tampa.

Ahhhhh, State Fairs!  If Michigan had this in it’s “food court”…we’d have a budget surplus for the fair!

In my morning email from “Ad Age“, they had a link to their story on the Denny’s FREE BREAKFAST  promotion that ran yesterday.

In case you missed it, Denny’s advertised for the first time ever in the Super Bowl this year.  They tagged about the last 5 seconds of their ad with a offer for everyone in America to get a free Grand Slam breakfast from 6a – 2 p on Tuesday, Feb. 3rd.  (I’m a marketer by trade so I love stuff like this, but the Grand Slam also features sausage and bacon…so I deem this appropriate bacon related news.)

In the article, Denny’s estimated their costs at $5 mil. for entire promotion.  They claim to have served over 2 mil. people.  Going with their announced totals, I believe this is incredible on so many levels…

Let’s look at some of my quick, fuzzy marketing math…

98 mil. people watched the Super Bowl.  Average spot cost was $2,2 mil. (guessing here)  This delivered a rough CPM (cost per thousand) of $0.02.  IT COST DENNY’S TWO PENNIES TO REACH A SINGLE CONSUMER!!!  Kind of makes advertising in the Super Bowl worth it for a national brand / chain.

Then 2 mil. took part in the sampling.  Let’s call this costs $2 mil (total spent less media – assumes an additional $800,000 spent on TV the following Monday as well).  That’s simple math – 2 mil. people / $2 mil. = $1.00.  The overall sampling program cost them $1.00!!!

But, this wasn’t just a simple “have a sample” type program.  These people had to make a conscious decision to drive to a destination, wait in line and the wait to be served!  Total up the amount of time an average customer would have spent getting to Denny’s, waiting at / in the restaurant and then finally sitting down and having breakfast…for sake of my fuzzy math, let’s call this average combined time 1 hour.  WOW!!  They provided a complete brand experience, including a sample with a retail value of $5.99, for what amounts to pennys!!!

Total cost = $5 mil. / 2 mil. served = $0.40 per person / 60 minutes brand exposure = $0.006 per minute!!!  What type of advertising/marketing provides a cost of less than a penny per 60 seconds???

Not to mention all the PR coverage and good will this generated (810 related articled found through my google machine this morning).

How many people were reacquainted with Denny’s yesterday?!  If you are thinking about going to breakfast this weekend, what’s on the top of your mind?

Now while my fuzzy math surface level analysis looks great…this completely rides on the quality of food, level of service and general cleanliness and condition of your specific Denny’s!  We’ve been to good Denny’s and we’ve been to bad!  That’s the big old wild card!

I admire this not only from my fuzzy math results, but just the willingness to do something this big!  It was an 8 hour window for the FREE breakfast!  Much longer than most sampling opportunities like this.  It was advertised on the BIGGEST stage, not limited to some web promotion or sponsorship tie-in.  They weren’t trying to limit exposure, they wanted to blow this out of the water! 

I can see the one perosn in the room who when asked for ideas said “Let’s give everyone in America a FREE Grand Slam breakfast!” and I applaud him/her for putting it out there…not limiting themselves.  I also applaud Denny’s for accepting the idea and really running with it!  So often, ideas like these get killed quickly, either through individual self-editing or corporate unwillingness. 

You can quibble with my math (in fact I am sure my numbers are not accurate…so I’ll save you the trouble) but you have to admit this was the right promotion at the right time with the right support.

Kudos Denny’s, kudos indeed!