Snacks Gone Bad

I am ashamed of the American People and the Frito Lay Company. We should all be ashamed.

Due to customer complaints, Frito Lay has opted to stop putting their line of Sun Chips in biodegradable bags because people complained about the bags being too noisy. Instead, Sun Chips have gone back to a quieter, plastic bag. A plastic bag that is not biodegradable and is not better for our planet.

Usually I advocate company response to consumer complaints. Usually it means companies are trying to improve their businesses. Usually the complaints are valid thoughts for an improved life and company.

In this case the complaints are nothing more than the noise...

For an amazing article on the Frito Lay Chip Bag Scandal click here.

What Are You Leaving Behind?

Today is officially the last day that Kodachrome will be processed. The chemicals are gone, the processing machine will be sold for scrap and the official end of a photographic era will be mourned by thousands.

The last Kodachrome photo lab is located in a tiny town in Kansas. This little lab never thought it would be the last of an era, but it has become just that. This story of the last of something, the end of an era reminds me of the thousands of businesses who shut their doors every day. Most of these businesses shut their doors without notice or any sort of fanfare. These businesses won't have happy endings. The only thing that will be left for them will be an empty store front and the paperwork they collected from the office.

The only thing the public will see are the blank spaces and forgotten advertisements. That's right... long after your business closes, your adoring public will still remember what used to be there. They'll see the ads printed on boxes, in magazines, newspapers and aired on television; they'll see the name, the logo, the slogan of your forgotten business. Some may even wonder what happened to your business, whether it is still around. Or will they?

It all depends on what kind of legacy you leave behind. If you decide to neglect your advertising for another year, you may end up on the shelves of those long forgotten. Do something great though, advertise your business and you may find that you have loyal customers who will mourn your passing. And even though everything must come to an end someday, you can still look back on those ads, at that time, and realize you did everything you could to make your business successful.

You didn't stand on the sidelines and hope people noticed you - you got out there, played the game and made sure people remembered you. Or better yet... maybe you're still playing.

Be Epic!

As we reviewed AdFreak's "25 Most Epic Ads That Aren't '1984'" we began to think about the time of the year and what Xente's resolutions should be for the New Year. Of course, waiting until a new year to make a resolution or to set a goal is just ridiculous, so feel free to set your goals any day, at any time.

Given the proximity of a New Year, however, Xente's goal for 2011 and forever is to just be epic. At Xente, we desire to ensure service so amazing that it can only be described as epic. Further, we want our clients to set those same goals!

So the question we have for all of you is simple - what are you doing or planning that will be truly epic? We want to know all about it and about your successes!

A Preemptive Strike!

Amazon has officially patented a new gift exchange system for their website. Instead of wasting the money to ship a present, that the intended recipient may not want, the recipient can instead convert the present to an Amazon credit. Recipients can also opt to only receive a certain amount of one "thing." For instance, if you put three necklaces on your wish list, but you only really want one, you can specify to have only one shipped and the others converted to gift certificates.

Amazon Patents Gift Exchange System


I'm not sure if this is genius or if this is the start of many, many family arguments. 

The Trap!

I got a call from one of my restaurant friends telling me about a great thing he found for advertising his business at no cost- www.restaurant.com.  Restaurant.com would list his site for free on their server and sell discounted gift certificates to his customers, with the website getting the money from the sale of the gift certificate.  The only decision my friend would have to make is whether he wanted to offer $20 gift certificates for $10, $50 gift certificates for $25 or $35 gift certificates for $25.  

This sounds like a great idea, right?  They will advertise your business for free and you can track the success rate by the new customers coming in who use the gift certificates.

You know the saying “nothing is FREE”?  Let’s take a minute to examine some of the problems with restaurant.com.

1.     Many restaurants run a food cost of over 33%, meaning if a customer orders $30 in food, it costs the restaurant $10 just to buy the food they are making.  So when restaurants put a $25 gift certificate with a minimum purchase of $35 on restaurants.com, the restaurant actually spends more money on food then they will see in the cash register.

2.     The discounted gift certificates are available all the time and the website, restaurant.com offers further discounts on the gift certificates to sell more of them.  By being on the site you are allowing your customers to get a $20 gift certificate to your restaurant for as little as $.40, yes that’s right forty cents when they run the 90% off sales.  Why would your customers ever want to pay full price for your services?

3.     When you join restaurant.com you must agree to a one-year commitment with them.  So for one year you cannot stop doing this promotion even if you fear it is not benefiting your business. 

4.     How do you plan to attract customers that are going to pay full price for your goods after the recession when they know your business as a discount place to dine? 

For some businesses discounts are great - pizza, yeah saw a Papa Johns ad this afternoon in the mail. Fast food- yeah my aunt handed me a stack of McDonalds coupons last week.  Coupons and discounts work for these restaurants

High-end restaurants that cater to special occasion celebrations with quality food should resist the urge to discount. 

Are the people who want to only spend $10 on your $30 rack of lamb the people you want in your restaurant?  If so by all means plan to put your restaurant on the list for discount advertising. If not? Research, Plan, Promote, and Buy a little advertising to HELP YOU SUCCEED. Trust me, it’ll cost you far less to do some real advertising than it will to sacrifice your image on restaurant.com. 

For more information on Coupons, Discounts and Promotions - how they affect your business - please plan to attend the Lunch n' Learn session in Gettysburg on January 6th. Please RSVP here:  http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1070141823/efblike