Food marketing is a world of its own and each food brand has a unique set of challenges. We delve into the heart of the brand and into the mind of your consumer. After years of experience we have mastered the integration of creative approaches into social media engagement, campaigns and promotions. We’re constantly refining our efforts to evolve with the needs of our client partners in managing everything from public relations and traditional advertising to packaging and point of sale.
Restaurant Menu Designs Before & After
Restaurant menu designs are always challenging because they’re a key execution of the brand but they also need to address the practical, functional needs of the restaurant guests. It was an especially fun challenge to address both of these issues with the Blackwall Hitch menu re-design. Practical & Functional Challenge While the existing menusRead more
On The First Day of Christmas TCA Gave to Me, One Kick-Ass Campaign
We’re always brainstorming fun, out-of-the-box ideas for our clients and the holiday season is one of the best times to put these creative campaign ideas to use. This year, we decided to take a classic Christmas song and put a spin on it to create the “Seasons Pizza 12 Days of Christmas” campaign featuring giveaways, promotions and online engagementRead more
Redesigning Mason’s Website and “Re-Maine”ing True to the Brand
Our client Mason’s Famous Lobster Rolls chose us to give their website a new look and feel. Earlier this year, Mason’s Lobster Rolls Annapolis, MD location renovated their restaurant and the website needed to reflect the changes. In addition to the brand that was updated, the logo was updated as well. The color palette usedRead more
Creating a New Take on a Father’s Day Campaign
This Father’s Day we decided to spice things up. We told fans to forget sitting at home watching a golf tournament or going to brunch to celebrate dear ole’ dad. Instead, we gave them a chance to make dad earn his present. At our Father’s Day eating contest, we gave each dad a $50 giftRead more
Bringing the URBurger Brand to Life
While a strong brand is critical, in the highly competitive restaurant industry building a great brand doesn’t guarantee that the customers will follow. So after working with URBurger to build a brand from the ground up, our work had only just begun. Restaurant Design & Experience We worked collaboratively with the URBurger team to ensureRead more
Breathing New Life into Employee Recruitment
Once upon a time, hiring and recruitment efforts were quite separate from the ad campaigns that we develop for brands. It was always up to the HR Director to deal with bringing in new talent and hiring the needed team members. But these days, things seem to be shifting and we’re often tasked with creatingRead more
Food brands positioned properly can do no wrong. As long as you know how to do it.
Throughout my career I’ve listened to far too many marketers throw around words like branding strategy and… positioning. Very few truly know what these things mean, but the most misunderstood is positioning. When it is done right, a properly positioned brand can do no wrong. No particular vertical has benefitted more from positioning than theRead more
Breaking Discount Rules to Increase Sales
So often we advise our clients not to be too “discount happy” with their products and services. It can often cheapen the brand and take away from the quality of the offerings. While that still holds true in most cases, we’ve had pretty amazing results working with Seasons Pizza on a discount focused campaign thatRead more
The Internet’s Power in the Starbucks Red Cup Controversy
November is my favorite month. And not just because of my birthday. It’s also the time of the year when Starbucks releases their red holiday cup design and my favorite seasonal flavor, Peppermint Mocha. Unless you live under a rock, you probably know there has been some major controversy over this year’s design, or more accurately,Read more
This new burger brand is made just for you.
Who doesn’t love a good burger? So juicy. So delicious. The problem is, burger joints are popping up everywhere these days (one is even called The Burger Joint!). So how do you differentiate a burger brand in such a crowded and trendy marketplace? Well that’s exactly the challenge presented to us with a recent brandRead more
A Game Changing Campaign
As much fun as the Superbowl is to watch, it’s even better to plan a Superbowl campaign for one of your clients. Superbowl Sunday is a huge day for pizza and wing consumption; so naturally, we worked with Seasons Pizza to make sure they made a big splash leading up to Superbowl Sunday. Integration wasRead more
Launching a New Restaurant Brand for Neo
When the owner of Neo told us his vision for his new restaurant concept, we were hooked. He knows his target audience (the ever popular, big spending, millennials) and he knows how powerful experiential dining is with them. So we began a pretty epic journey with the Neo team to first, create a brand from scratch, thenRead more
Food Marketing To Millennials
You hear about them all the time, the Millennials. As children of the Baby Boomers, this group of 77 million 18-29 year olds is effectively taking over the consumer marketplace in the US (Fortune). Millennials have incredible buying power; in fact they make up about $400 billion dollars worth of annual spending (Fortune). Brands, especiallyRead more
5 BIG Grocery Trends that have Food Marketers Pacing the Aisles
I returned from this year’s “Chicken Marketing Seminar” hosted by the National Chicken Council with interesting insights that extend well beyond the meat case. Several speakers identified trends that affect everyone in the grocery channel. Here is a quick overview to whet your appetite: Traditional Grocery Losing Market Share Fast – This trend isn’t new, butRead more
7-11’s Gift to You
Heads up everyone, tomorrow is 7-11 Day which means free slurpees! And this year 7-11 have taken it to a whole new level by giving out free food all week when you download their app. While celebrating 7-11’s 87th birthday, the app will be customers’ gateway to scoring some refreshing drinks, cookies, and candy from theRead more
Food Marketing Through the Eyes of a Child
As a parent it is always a challenge to incorporate healthy foods into your child’s diet…especially when you have a picky eater. What I’ve come to realize is that it needs to be your child’s bright idea to eat healthy foods, not yours. In past years, it was an uphill battle to encourage healthy eatingRead more
Thinking Beyond the Point of Sale to Reach Grocery Customers
Food brands are discovering great access to consumers through supermarket registered dietitians (RDs). Most chains employ a number of RDs or “consumer affairs advisors,” some as many as one per store. As long as your brand can promote from a health/nutrition platform of some kind, this can be an excellent way to connect with consumersRead more
Product Isn’t King After All
If you haven’t read Al Ries’s article on Ad Age this week, go do it now. The subject matter is a simple concept that many brands choose to ignore. You cannot rely solely on a superior product to create success. Holding the almighty “first in mind” spot among consumer audiences is extremely hard to achieve.Read more
New Ways Food Brands Can Reach Consumers at the Point of Sale – Part 2
In part 1 of this post, we told you about a great new resource for Supermarket Registered Dietitians. Well, the launch is official and you can now check it out for yourself. The Cyphers Agency was happy to lend our food and online marketing expertise to help develop ShoppingForHealth.org for Nancy Tringali Associates. Nancy Piho, CEO of Nancy TringaliRead more
New Ways Food Brands Can Reach Consumers at the Point of Sale
Supermarket Dietitians Crave Great Content In recent years, supermarkets have discovered that Registered Dietitians are a powerful customer service and marketing tool. Almost every major grocery chain now employs a number of RDs, some as many as one per store. Supermarket Registered Dietitians (SRDs) wear a number of hats to educate and engage consumers, from managing in-storeRead more
Food Brands: Prepare for an Ugly 2014
Don’t worry; it’s not your sales that have to be ugly, it’s your food. Business Week recently shared details from JWT’s annual trends report predicting that 2014 will be “proudly imperfect,” especially in the food industry. And we have to admit, we’re pretty excited to embrace the not-so-perfect world of food. Enough of the over-styledRead more
Should you Follow the Latest Franchise Food Trend?
It never ceases to amaze me how food trends can sweep across the country creating a domino effect in the franchise industry. Once upon a time it was bagel shops, then Mexican fast casual, then every manner of hamburger imaginable. Most recently, pizza concepts are hotter than a large pie fresh out of the oven. NotRead more
Things We Love: Healthy Life Bread
One of the greatest things about the prospect of working with a new brand is trying out the product. At The Cyphers Agency we believe that we do our best work for the brands that we truly love. You know, those products that you don’t have to force yourself to get behind, the ones thatRead more
Innovative Food Truck Marketing, Advertising and Design
Food trucks have been around for a long time, and fortunately, there are many to be found around the DC/Baltimore area. We’ve all heard of them, fed on deliciousness from one of them or at least heard a friend’s story about how great the “crabcake cone” is from the Gypsy Queen food truck in BaltimoreRead more
The Importance of Great Food Photography for Your Brand
It’s really important to take great photos of our food. Let’s all agree on this, for the sake of our appetites and the sake of our brands. There are so many levels at which we experience a photo. The basic human need for food draws us into a brand image of food, while our moreRead more
When Food Brands Go Social—Photo Sharing Platforms Become Your Best Friend
With photo sharing becoming all the rage, it is time for food brands to get serious about serving up delicious photos with social media. It is no secret that on social, photos are all the hype. There are even social platforms like Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr who are completely photocentric, and a multitude ofRead more
Ruth’s Chris Steak House Work
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Food Tastes Better With a Story
Does your family tell you that you make the most delicious jalapeño jam they’ve ever tasted? “You should sell this joint, man, people would totally buy it!” The problem is a lot of people make good jam. Yours may taste better, it may not. None of that matters if no one ever picks up yourRead more