GenDigital

What All Hot Dog Connoisseurs Aspire To

Some post fourth of July fun postings...Twenty-seven year old Takeru Kobayashi from Japan broke his own record to win his sixth straight Nathan's Independence Day Hot Dog Eating Contest. The relatively small Japanese man weighs only 160 pounds, yet choked down nearly 54 hot dogs in just 12 minutes time breaking his old record set last year by half a dog. To be honest, I was pulling for Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas who weighs in at only 100 lbs and holds such accolades including downing 65 hard boiled eggs in 6.5 minutes. How could you not love that?

Japanese Fast Food Chain Coming To The U.S.

Teens in L.A. could soon be snacking on some fast food Japanese cuisine instead of Taco Bell or Jack in the Box fare. Japanese fast food giant Gindaco plans to open its first U.S. store in Los Angeles and has its sights on opening 20 more stores by 2010. It is no secret that teens and college students are frequent fast food eaters. During a typical week, nearly eight in ten (78%) college students report eating at at least one fast-food eatery. Couple that penetration with the fact that young people especially are into ethnic Asian and Indian foods. In fact, based on recent findings from our proprietary panel, teens and college students ages 16 to 24 said they ranked Japanese foods and Indian foods as two of their favorites, right up there with Chinese food and ahead of Mexican foods. So, the timing of Gindaco hitting the U.S. market seems to be right on. Food experts expect more Japanese food outlets to open up in west coast markets like San Francisco, Seattle and Portland within the next two years...it would be interesting to know how many plan to open within a mile or two of a college campus.

Now That Soda Is Out, Beverage Makers Get Behind Bottled Water

I posted in early May about how the major soft drink bottlers including Pepsi, Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper would voluntarily begin removing carbonated soft drinks from elementary schools, middle schools and high schools across the U.S. beginning this fall. To compensate for the loss, many beverage makers are turning up the heat on their bottled water offerings launching aggressive marketing campaigns. Nestle will lead the pack by running a large national program promoting the launch of Aquapod, a rocket-shipped shaped 11 ounce bottle of water specifically targeting 6 to 12 year olds. Expect this to only be the start as bottled water will soon be the cola wars of years past.

Bottlers Voluntarily Bow Out Of Schools

The big three: Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper, announced yesterday they would start removing their soft drinks beginning this fall. Under the agreement between the soft drink companies and health advocates, students in elementary school would be served only bottled water, low-fat and nonfat milk, and 100% fruit juice in servings no bigger than eight ounces. Students in middle school would have their serving size increased to 10 ounces. And, in high school, low calorie juice drinks, sports drinks and diet sodas would be permitted and the serving size would be increased another 2 ounces to 12 ounces. I understand the part about not having regular soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi in elementary school, but what's the problem with sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade?  Although the plan is voluntary, the American Beverage Association expects 35 million public school children to be affected eventually. The plan will take at least a couple of years to complete, so there is still plenty of time for junior and miss junior to keep downing regular Coke and Pepsi.

To Re-Energize, Sprite Gets Funky

To invigorate sales Sprite is kicking around some very unconventional spots. From the same ad agency who brought you Burger King's famous (or infamous) subservient chicken to those somewhat weird Volkswagen commercials with the talking black thing who encourages the target audience of young people to "drive faster," comes a whole new strange effort. Apparently, the thinking from agency creatives is the weirder, the better when it comes to engaging Gen Y. They might be onto something. Some of the not-no-normal scenes include: two sumo wrestlers painted yellow and green that crush a man's head; a woman being revived by miniature Asian nurses and a man whose eyeball turns into a mouth.

Welcome To The New Side of Coke

Coca Cola is hopping on the digital music/viral marketing bandwagon with the launch of a new branded entertainment site that offers users the opportunity to download and share music and video files from the artist Ne-Yo. In a continued effort to appeal to Gen Y, the number one soft drink brand is offering Ne-Yo downloads in a variety of formats including the use of the Bit Torrent service as well as being iPod compatible. We will see if this is a start of a new trend with consumer packaged goods companies following Coke's path.

Hershey Gives Buzz Marketing a Shot

Hershey, a long time traditional advertiser (tv and print only) is working with Arnold and buzz marketing agency BzzAgent to re-launch the Take-5 candy bar. BzzAgent will utilize 69,000 of their own evangelists to deliver samples into the hands of friends and family. I wonder why they chose such an odd number? I would also love to know how BzzAgent measures ROI, but am happy to see Hershey finally try something else beyond just television and print advertising.

Soft Drink Sales Fall for the First Time in 20 Years

Is this really a surprise? College kids, perhaps the largest segment of soft drink consumers have been drinking more bottled water than regular soft drinks for the past two years. And, if they're not drinking bottled water they guzzling down energy drinks or flavored teas. Analysts expect the soft drink decline to continue into this year as well