SoCal’s Legendary Sprinkles Cupcakes Opens in Palo Alto.

If you ever thought a cupcake is a cupcake is a cupcake, you’ve never tasted Sprinkles.

Talk about droolworthy. Each scratch-baked, hand-frosted frou-frou is a mini masterpiece of mmmm. Flavors change daily, giving you an almost plausible excuse to keep trying new ones. Splurge with Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Ginger Lemon, Chai Latte, Coconut, Vanilla Milk Chocolate, Orange and oodles more.

Check out the new store at luxe shopping center Stanford Court in Palo Alto. 393 Stanford Court. 650-323-9300.

Guru’s Note: Order Sprinkles for that office birthday party or as a gift. They deliver!

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Meet Foodzie, The Etsy-Like Site for Artisanal Foods.

With all the brouhaha here this week about TechCrunch50 spouting startups in San Francisco, and the just-concluded DemoFall, held in San Diego, it’s easy to think that all the cool entrepreneurial stuff is only happening in California.

That’s why I was so happy to hear about Foodzie, one of the intriguing new site concepts emerging from TechStars, an incubator program in Boulder, Colorado. TechStars was founded by a collective of Colorado-based entrepreneurs as a way of promoting entrepreneurial activity in their home state.

Guru favorite Springwise reports:
Consumers interested in handmade goods already have online marketplace Etsy to help them find new treasures, and now Foodzie aims to bring similar capabilities to the foodies of the world.

Based in Boulder, Colo., Foodzie is an online marketplace dedicated to helping consumers discover and buy food from small artisan producers and growers. The site acts as an aggregator that focuses on gourmet and organic health foods, allowing small producers to set up storefronts to display and sell their products. Though Foodzie hasn’t yet officially launched its full marketplace, three producers are up and running in a “sneak preview” version of the site: Seth Ellis Chocolatier, Boulder Popcorn and Tetulia Teas, all out of Colorado.

Nicely designed producer pages feature not just a selection of products for sale online, but also information on ingredients and allergens, tags, photos and background details on the people behind the store.

Foodzie operates on a commission-based model whereby producers pay the company a fee of 20 percent for each transaction conducted through the site, allowing the producers to keep a full 80 percent of what they charge. (Traditional retailers, by contrast, often charge fees as high as 50 percent.)

Foodzie is currently seeking USD 350,000 in seed funding. C’mon readers, step up to the plate (pun intended) and give these folks some moolah.

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More RetroBranding: The MilkMan Returns to Manhattan

As my Facebook friends know, I’ve spent the past week writing Moo concepts. Not easy when one is lactose-intolerant, but hey, we stalwart copywriters carry on even in the face of potential hives.  So here I am, deep in cow cuds, when I discover this new product update from my favorite Springwise site: The Manhattan Milk Company is reviving old-fashioned dairy delivery, delivering organic milk to customers’ doors in glass milk bottles.

For a USD 5 delivery charge, Manhattanites can get a weekly delivery of fresh milk. The company’s driver loads up his truck on Wednesdays at 4 am and delivers to all of Manhattan, picking up empty bottles when he drops off the full ones. The milk is sourced from 51 Amish farms in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, about 160 miles southwest of New York City, and is also sold at the Batch store on 150B W. 10th Street.

This ‘everything old is new again’ trend follows the triumphant return of Schlitz Classic, which sold out in its native home of Milwaukee in a matter of days. It was quickly snatched up by both older guys who remember the beer from back in the day, and younger drinkers curious about the brouhaha. Apparently, you can remember the 60’s, even if you were there.

Guru’s Note: I drive one of the world’s primo examples of retro-branding:  the VW “New” Beetle convertible in gecko green with adorably pimped out green daisy wheels.

With this trend in mind, what’s next?  What would YOU like to bring back? Perhaps with a new green or tech twist?

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Going Bananas Over Dole Organic’s Marketing Savvy.

I always love it when I get a new food project.  I get to wax eloquent with phrases like farmers-market-fresh and sun-plumped perfect. I get to invent new blends, flavors and colors. I get to nose around in my stockpile of ingredients and decide whether they should be mulled, cold-pressed or frappe’d.

But all of this is wimpy indeed — mere puffery, in fact — when compared to the way in which Dole has masterfully re-tooled its Organics line, giving it new life and a compelling new story to tell.  In an era when our favorite veggies suddenly turn villainous, made in China means made with mercury and lead, and no one is really sure what ‘green’ means anymore, Dole has taken not just the eco road but the ethical one as well.

The story: Dole Organic lets consumers “travel to the origin of each organic product”.  By typing in a fruit sticker’s three-digit Farm Code on Dole Organic’s website, customers can find the story behind their banana. Each farm’s section on the website includes background info, shows photos of the crops and workers and tells consumers more about the origin of Dole’s organic products.  You can even use Google Earth to get a closer look at the community.  A new Carbon Compensation 2008 chart is available as well.

I typed in code 698 and here’s what I got:   

Farm Name: La Gloria and Las Palmas

Las Palmas Farm and La Gloria Farm belongs to Andrés Altamirano, a member of VRAM group. La Gloria farm has 20 hectares of organic bananas and 20 hectares of organic cocoa. The farm is located in Machala, Province of El Oro in Ecuador. The farm is been certified by BCS Öko Garantie since 2005. Mr. Altamirano as well as his partners of VRAM group is commited with the improvement of the organic farming.  Las Palmas farm has 25 hectares in third year of conversion to organic, next January 2008 the farm will be certified as organic and will start exporting its organic fruit with Dole Organic Program too.

Now that carbon footprinting and corporate transparency are here to stay, it’s likely that more marketers will soon come up with their own seed to spoon stories and labels. Enquiring minds now urgently want to know: Where the heck did my dinner come from? Who grew it? How did it get to my local Safeway? What kind of footprint did it leave behind?

And the ultimate question of all: Which is worse? Carbon or calories?

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Your 15 Minutes of UGC Fame & Fortune Start Here.

While researching my article on Rickrolling, I came across a bunch of User Generated Content Contests that sound like fun. There’s something for everyone — from Creative Consumers to Brainiacs. Increasingly tuned-in marketers are playing it smart with these promotions, following the Three Rules of UGC Contest Development:

1. Tap into consumers’ passions
2. Use multiple social channels to reach consumers
3. Know your audience — pick prizes & content format accordingly

Some of these chances at fame and fortune end soon.  So hurry.

Casting Call: Lifetime Networks invites female filmmakers to submit their original short films. Deadline for entries is July 8. The winning contestant will have their short shown on Lifetime Movie Networks and receive a cash prize of $5,000 plus the opportunity to attend networking events and festivals.

TechwareLabs Case Mod Contest with over $600 in prizes!!!Quote: Are you a mad modder at heart? Have you taken the toaster over and crammed a quad core CPU, dual video cards, and four hard drives into it? Have you altered your washer to look like something that qualifies as a WMD and outfit it with a PC? If so we want to see your mod, big or small. Submit everything you have modified and we will incorporate it into a video to be hosted on our site. The winning case mod will receive over $600 in prizes and have their creation appear in the video and also be interviewed by us and be featured on our front page. Get your dremel and bondo out and let the mods begin.

Shoot, Share, Get On TV. Ziddio feels like a mash up of YouTube and Bix.com, allowing users to enter competitions and win prizes - including appearances on TV. People create videos and upload them to Ziddio.com for the world to see, laugh, question, mock, and even enjoy. Run by Comcast; frequent contests.

Do You Think You Have What It Takes To Be A Super Star?
Simon Malls is inviting you to come and check out the Simon dTOUR Live Video and Recording Studio! At select malls across the country you will have the chance of a lifetime to show us what you’ve got.

BrainReactions is an online brainstorming site. Most of the time, BStormers do it out of the kindness of their hearts and a persistent need to do something, anything with their random neuro-eurekas. But for the first time since I’ve been seeding the site with my genius, (mad) money will change hands. Check out the Monjee contest.

Someday Stories From Wells Fargo
Everybody’s got a dream for Someday. What’s yours? This is a contest that’s all about you and what you want for your “Someday.” Today, just tell us the true and aspiring story about your Someday dream and your winnings could help make it real.

Calling All Filmmakers!

Power up with this potion and get out your camera. Create a :30 (30 second) commercial featuring CUBA’s new ‘All Natural’ ‘Herbal Energy Juice’.

TruTv + Black Gold Teams Up To Go Social.
My old white water rafting buddy, Thom Beers, strikes it rich again with the premiere of Black Gold. In conjunction with this sure-to-be-another-hit, TruTV launched the Black Gold Challenge casual game on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to promote the premiere of the new series about West Texas oil roughnecks, debuting Wednesday, June 18 at 10p. Players tap their friends to form a drilling crew then pick a spot in Texas to begin drilling for hidden caches of “black gold.” One hidden hole contains a voucher for $50,000.

What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?
You know the drill.

CREATE ENTER JUDGE
Yahoo’s contest site, Bix, offers a variety of contests including a Spore Creature contest with a MacAir and 50-inch plasma TV as prizes. I’m thinking I might have a better shot with the Spore contest than with my karoake version of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up.’

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Reviving A Sixties Icon: Schlitz, The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous Is Back.

I’m from Milwaukee, so I oughta know . . .   Oops.  That jingle actually belongs to Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, not Schlitz.   But these days, who knows?  The Pabst Brewing Company now owns Schlitz.  The company is bringing back the Schlitz  “Classic 1960’s Formula”, which was last widely used more than 30 years ago.

Target for the icon is guys who remember the sixties fondly, recalling it as an era when ‘values mattered.’ Aside from tapping into the original recipe, this revived brew also brings back the famous “Brown Glass” dating back to 1912 and revolutionary in its time, plus old-school attitude. New advertising suggests that drinkers go back to a time when “the cars were cooler, the athletes didn’t cheat, and the beer was better.” Check it all out on the new website.

This ‘more full bodied taste’ brew, once beloved by everybody’s Packer-Backer grandfather, will be officially launched Tuesday in Milwaukee at Libiamo’s.  The restaurant is in the heart of Schlitz Park, the office park created out of the old Schlitz brewery.

Questions remain about the comeback: Can an old brand be dusted off, spiffed up for a new era and given a second chance? Can it successfully emerge from a long sleepy 30 year hibernation? Typically, when these retro-brandings have been accomplished, marketers go after a new target — rather than merely try to re-up the old one. Think VW’s rebirth of sentimental cult favorite, the Beetle, which relaunched in the late 90’s. Think Apple, which has reinvented itself repeatedly. Think another Milwaukee icon and comeback company, Harley Davidson, which also touts a unique heritage and a rabidly loyal fan base, including a solid 75% of customers with a penchant for repeat purchases. But the company never bet solely on its existing users, no matter how its HOGs grew, nor by standing still in terms of product development. Instead, Harley rebuilt its brands by letting them evolve; by creating products based on heritage but adding new contemporary twists aimed at being more compelling and relevant to a modern audience.

Harley also smartly used one of the primary attributes of any fan base, particularly a cult favorite like the Harley Owners Group: their love of talking about the Harley experience. Long before we marketers blithely began tossing around jargon –customer experience, experiential marketing, meaningful marketing –Harley was encouraging word-of-mouth. It worked.

Does anybody know if Pabst/Schlitz is working on a WOM campaign or using social marketing tools to reach potential new users? Hope so –because targeting just guys who remember the sixties might be a touch dicey. As they say, ‘if you can remember the sixties, you probably weren’t there.’

 

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Whole Foods + Other ‘Green’ Grocers Land on The Seafood Red List

Greenbiz.com breaks the news today that even our supposedly uber-green grocery stores came close to flunking Greenpeace’s recent exam on sustainable seafood. Grocers with big green reputations such as Whole Foods, Ahold USA and Harris Teeter failed to score more than four out of 10 possible points in the report: ‘Carting Away The Oceans: How Grocery Stores Are Empting The Seas.”

Wegmans, Wal-Mart and Target followed with three out of 10 points.

The RED LIST is a compilation of 22 fished and farmed species with the most significant environmental impacts. All grocers surveyed sold fish from the Red List, which includes certain tuna varieties, Atlantic halibut, orange roughy and Chilean Sea Bass.

Anyone who lives on the Monterey Peninsula in the spectacular shadow of the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium knows better. Some ten years ago, the Aquarium developed Seafood Watch, a program designed to create consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources.

All anyone at Safeway, Aldo, Kroger and Costco — the supermarkets that scored two out of 10 points – had to do was get out their mobiles and check the Aquarium’s online pocket Seafood Guide. Or maybe the grocers who scored a single point out of 10, including Trader Joe’s and Publix — might want to check out the Aquarium’s handy tips about how to ‘avoid items on the AVOID LIST.’

While apparently the authors of the report were somewhat upbeat about improvements in sustainability practices to come, inevitably what news like this does is increase consumer skepticism and ups complaints about greenwashing. These days, with a growing group of citizens making a tangible effort to green up their acts, there is an urgent need for transparency, not tricks.

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Methane-Schmethane. Meat *Is* The Menu at LA’s New Animal.

With half the planet growing and glowing green, it had to happen.  Le Resistance.  The Uprising. The Anti-Vegan.

Meat is back with a juicy vengeance.

This week launches the proud and primal return of the carnivore, smack dab in the heart of uber-emerald Los Angeles. 

Animal is the new restaurant from gutsy chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of Carmelized Productions.  Not surprisingly, the place is sort of tucked away, perhaps to keep rampaging greenies from tossing red paint at the unmarked door.

The menu sounds politically correct — ’seasonal’ paired up with ’sustainable’ — until that ‘other white meat’  (pork) shows up.  Everything sounds daringly meaty. There’s even a chocolate bar sprinkled with bacon bits.  So if you were raised in Green Bay rather than Half Moon Bay, you might just prowl on over furtively, carrying your I AM NOT A PLASTIC BAG for the leftovers.

The wine list sounds politically perfect, too.

Animal:

435 North Fairfax Avenue, between Oakwood and Rosewood Avenues, Los Angeles/Fairfax Corridor (323-782-9225).

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