Aren’t We All “Foodies”?

|Uncategorized4 Comments
Aren’t We All “Foodies”?

When someone claims to be a “foodie” I have to wonder … aren’t we all? We all have to eat or we die so doesn’t that make us all “foodies” by default? I have my favorites, you have yours too and we like to talk about them.

Along this line of being a “foodie”, here’s an interesting conversation I had with a firm over a year ago that has since become a client for my firm, Fresh Consulting.

Banners on a Roll is a printing company operating out of a single location serving the entire US as a market. The business functions primarily from their website which, at the time of our meeting, was very dated and needed updating. We encouraged a website makeover along with a digital and social media strategy along with the implementation services to support this vision.

The prospect was stuck on the validity of the proposed new site. Would an updated website really drive new business and bring in new clients? If the web is part of your firm’s brand (and in this case it was 99% of their “real estate”) and it is what your clients see as their buying experience then how important is it?

Then a thought hit me that I should ask everyone, including my own team, what is your favorite Seattle restaurant and why?

This was a risky question, but the result was exactly what I had hoped for…

Now, before you read what happened next I want you to think about that question and tell me your answer in the comments when you’re done reading. What is your favorite restaurant and why?

The Result

The answers came in as follows:

  • Oh, I love ____ because the view of the water
  • The best place is _____ because of the romantic ambiance
  • We like ______ for the view of the mountains and the sunset
  • Old such-and-such is fantastic for it’s history and great service

To a person no one, not even my own team, gave the answer I thought someone might voice, but this was exactly the result I had hoped for.

Everyone commented on the buying experience rather than on the actual product THE FOOD. The quality of the food when dining at these establishments was a given.

Now the Banners team understood the customer buying experience and realized that their site, the actual client’s buying experience, was important and the actual product quality, their printed product, was expected.

The buying experience is just as important to a customer as the end product.

Starbucks sells great beverages. So does 7-11, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Doughnuts. In a taste test from 2006 look who ranked highest? See -> http://aol.it/hMPq3O

Again, the buying experience makes a difference and customers will pay a premium for that ambiance, that experience and service, even if another product outranks the industry leader.

So, we’re all “foodies” to some degree, but we’re all about the buying experience too.

What’s your favorite buying experience you’d like to share?

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Aren’t We All “Foodies”? | Mike Whitmore's Blog -- Topsy.com

  • http://twitter.com/patmrhoads Pat Rhoads

    Great post! I’ve never really thought of it this way, but you’re right – the food quality at our favorite places is a given, it’s the experience that sets it apart. And that goes for our buying experiences for most products and services.

  • http://pungle.org Justin Hammack

    I don’t think we’re all foodies. Liking to eat or be somewhere that makes you feel special doesn’t make you a ‘foodie’. And a foodie isn’t a gourmet. I think wikipedia does a pretty good job of clarifying it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodie

    Specifically: ‘foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news.’

    Food is the key word – not experiences. Foodies differentiate a restaurant as to whether or not it’s a popular experience vs the actual preparation and quality of the meal. While most other people who call themselves a foodie like to eat because of the experience and the story they tell themselves about the way it makes them feel.

    Successful restaurants know this model – appeal to the foodie, get noticed, cross the gap of early adopters, pull back the quality (and cost) – cater to mainstream serving above average food as a well known reputable restaurant. While, foodies moves on to better pastures, cycle begins again.

    Seth Godin does a pretty good job on this topic in a couple of his books.

    • http://twitter.com/mikewhitmore Mike Whitmore

      Thanks for the reply Justin and for sharing the info. Always insightful. Thanks for reading and your insights!