My latest iphone app let’s me make my iphone images look amazing. I cannot even remember what my pictures looked like before I downloaded lo-mob.
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loving lomob.
first step for sunchips, giant leap for the industry.
You can only get Media Post articles if you subscribe to them, so I took an excerpt from SunChips Rolling Out Compostable Package written by Karl Greenberg that I read this morning about SunChips takes a huge step in the greening of product packaging.
Snack brand SunChips, a division of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay, likes its packaging to be ubiquitous on shelves — but on sidewalks, bushes, in trees or the random gutter? Not so much. The company is rolling out compostable, organic-based packaging bit by bit this year, with a fully compostable bag due out on Earth Day in 2010.
The marketing effort includes a 45-second ad showing a time lapse of the 100% biodegradable bag decomposing over 14 weeks. It will run once on “American Idol” on Tuesday — the day before Earth Day — followed by a home-page takeover on various social/video Web sites. Print ads running in People will include samples of the new biodegradable material. SunChips has also begun a national point-of-purchase effort in grocery stores this week with pamphlets containing swatches of the material — made of polylactic acid (trade name Ingeo) with instructions on how to compost it.
The campaign will be extended after Earth Day through a participation initiative via a partnership with National Geographic. A digital campaign — centering on the video — will direct people to GreenEffect.com, where they can submit an account of steps they or their community groups are taking toward a sustainable lifestyle.
Out of all of the Earth Day promotions that I have been reading about, this one stands out the most for me. SunChips seems to be taking this a step further than just talking the talk…. They are actually inventing a material that will revolutionize the way product packaging is made and putting the idea of composting out there. Gone are the days that hippies and farmers are the only ones who compost their scrapes of food and now businesses like Whole Foods are setting up Composting Facilities around the United States. I look forward to seeing this trend continue further than Whole Foods and my backyard (the picture below is a before shot of our garden).
melon shooters & eye shadow in green valley.
This past Sunday, I hopped into my semi-gas friendly Honda Civic with three of my girls and trekked through the Sebastopol Farmer’s Market to make my way through West County. Our mission was to Celebrate Earth Day in Green Valley. Yes, the official Earth Day is this Wednesday, but who does a wine tasting event on a Wed other than me?
This year the theme was “Low Key, Low Impact” and five different Russian River Valley Wineries (aka pinot-yumminess) opened their tasting rooms to the public and held free earth-friendly exhibits, food pairings and tastings.
The first stop was at Iron Horse Vineyards where we were greeted by 80 degree heat, delicious sparkling wines, my favorite wine radio host and Sonoma County wine queen – Ziggy the Wine Gal and the owner of the winery, the “earth mother goodness” herself – Joy Sterling. My favorite part of the Iron Horse event was the art exhibit which focused on re-cycled art, made from re-claimed, re-purposed, re-imagined materials. I will have to say part of my reasoning for this was because it was in the bottling room and the only way to get away from the heat!
Lukka Feldman of Barn Diva was in charge of the salt (and popcorn) tasting which including a chunk of salt that Joy brought back from the Himalayan Mountains. The winery’s head chef Ruben Gomez served a spring vegetable soup with bread from Wild Flour Bread in Freestone. The chocolate from TCHO chocolate paired perfectly with the Iron Horse Chardonnay. According to Joy, “The Citrus chocolate is from Madagascar and has a distinct lively citrusy zing that crazy as it sounds is delicious with Chardonnay.”
After our amazing experience over at Iron Horse, we made our way past the redwoods and Russian River Valley vineyards to Harford Family Winery, where I wasn’t able to have the same interaction with the owner and winemakers (though I would love to in the future).
This didn’t stop my friends and me to gush over the pairing of their Four Hearts Vineyard Chardonnay along with some Melon Shooters. At first I was a bit hesitant to try because I think of either sparkling wine or a Sauvignon Blanc is best paired with any sort of fruit, but this pairing was perfection. I even advise the people at Harford to have that pairing as part of an everyday tasting experience, maybe even let people know the recipe on their site.
Dutton-Goldfield and Balletto Vineyards was our last stop because we wanted take their 2:30 tour of the Laguna de Santa Rosa, Sonoma County’s watershed, wildlife preserve that can be found in their backyard. Of course getting four girls to get anywhere on time hardly ever works, so we were about 10 minutes late. Not that I minded because we got to spend more time drinking their Pinot Noir. While Balletto’s Pinot is a great every day wine, Dutton-Goldfield’s had a range of Pinots that any wine drinker would love. My personal favorite, as well as the tasting room staff’s recommendation was the 2006 McDougall Vineyard Pinot Noir.
Okay, maybe the only “green” part of my experience was the melon shooters and my green eye shadow, but it is nice to see a West County event that was a perfect balance of really good wine and food along with education without it being forced down your throat.
ttl @ estate.
Last night was the Twitter Taste Live Rhone event, put on by the Hospice du Rhône, the World’s Largest International Celebration of Rhône Variety Wines and Sondra at Estate, an amazing new Italian restaurant in Sonoma, Ca.
Toting itself as the largest #ttl event that has taken place, the party at ESTATE brought in a huge crowd. Twitters, both old school and new to Sonoma to try Rhone varietals and eat, mac and cheese. If you take a look at the list below you will see many newbies that don’t even have a picture uploaded. Either way, it is great seeing new people join Twitter (especially if they didn’t join because of the whole annoying Oprah and Ashton Kucher craze), drinking wine… and socializing.
Let me know if I missed anyone!
winebratsf aka vinquire
Gratuitous iPhone, mac and cheese and wine shot .
note from tom (myspace).
Hey all,
Today marks the launch of MySpace Local which is a great place to check out local businesses in your neighborhood. You can rate, review, and share your favorite neighborhood venues with friends. We’re launching with two categories today (Restaurants and Bars & Nightlife), but will be adding many more soon. MySpace Local covers every major city in the U.S. Check out cool places near you.
I already wrote some reviews of my favorite places in Los Angeles — go here to read them if you want to see how it works. I’m looking forward to seeing your favorite places. Thanks to Outback Steakhouse for helping MySpace to make this happen.
-Tom
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I just logged onto MySpace for the first time in a few days to check on a comment and the first thing I saw was the above letter from Tom the “creator” of MySpace. Since the drop in visitors to MySpace they have been trying to win people back through many different new features (most that are carbon copies of Facebook features), but will this local rating system for restaurants and bars be the thing that sets this social network apart and possibly win visitors (or brands) back? Doubtful…. I tried it out by searching for “beer” in Santa Rosa, CA and only two bars (one that is actually closed) came up in the search. I guess I will have to try it out again in a few weeks to see if anything has changed.
*shana.
ben and jerry’s using facebook connect.
This new Facebook format has brought on a abundance of brands jumping into this social network to create Brand Pages… This has it’s positive and negative impacts. The negative being that there are possibility too many choices of brands out there for Facebook users to become “fans” of. The positive part of this is that the brands that put forth the extra effort will stand out.
Case in point: Ben and Jerry’s
This is a brand that I already have a deep connection with. Phish food has been a part of some of my favorite college memories, eating a whole pint of it in the parking lot of Safeway or Vons with a friend when the occasional case of the munchies hit.
They have been one of the brands with the largest fan base since as far back as I started paying attention (almost a year and a half) and now you are able to participate with Ben and Jerry’s and Facebook on their own website. With Facebook Connect you can post your favorite flavors on your Facebook Profile, letting all your friends know which flavors are your favorite.
Why do this? Well, it is all about your personal relationship with the brand. The most memorable brands are the ones that people feel a personal connection with. I will argue til I am blue in the face that Phish Food is the best flavor, and even though I do not have a personal preference of which winery truly has the best Pinot Noir, I have been known to get into arguments over which varietal of wine is the best and will go to any winery that makes a Pinot.
Which brands do you feel you have a “personal” connection with?
the simplicity of chocolate and wine.
There is a reason that chocolate and wine are a perfect pair. Both are two of my favorite items to consume. Both enhance the flavors of anything that either is paired with. Both start off as a fruit (cacao beans or grapes). Both are products of their environment, and if grown with the proper care, it is a fairly simplistic process to create the final result. As Erik Olsen at Kokomo Winery stated in an interview with The Wine Spies, his wine making philosophy is to “try my best to keep my own personal thumbprint off the wines I make. Instead, I try to make wines that show the terroir or convey a real sense of the place where they were grown. I want the fruit and the vineyard to really shine through.”
At the Wine 2.0 Expo last Thursday, I met up with a few folks at TCHO chocolate. They were the one of the only non-alcohol related brands at the event and it was a welcomed booth at the wine/technology event. Back when I was working with Scharffen Berger on their pr efforts, I took a great interest in the story of TCHO.
It is a new chocolate brand that started last year in “beta” form, meaning they sent out samples of their chocolate in plain brown packs to members of the media and bloggers. No fancy packaging or gimmicks – just quality chocolate. It was such a great PR move in my eye. A bit of mystery about the brand before releasing it to the public is a gutsy move on their part and thankfully they have quality chocolate to back it up. It is simple chocolate without any added flavors and currently comes in 4 different varieties. Each with it’s own characteristic. Chocolaty, nutty, fruity and citrus.
Now, they have a great new high-tech design (TCHO 1.0), a retail location in San Francisco and can be found in many different tasting rooms and gourmet shops in Sonoma and Napa Counties (including Jimtown and the Cheese Shop in Healdsburg). Go to TCHO IS to see TCHO’s philosophy, it is a fun read.
They are branching out into the wine and technology world so it is logical to see them at Wine 2.0, which was created as a mixture of both. I look forward to seeing TCHO 2.0* and them diving more into the social media world where they are a perfect fit with the bacon loving blogger crowd!
*I think I may know of someone who would love to help… Cough, cough… Amy and team.
A winery that really stood out for me at the Expo was Round Pond Estate, a Napa Valley winery out of Rutherford. With a few limited-production varietals and handpicked fruit, olive oils and red wine vinegars, they are the type of family owned Napa winery that I can respect. The wine was made to respect to the fruit and the vineyards, same with their olive oils.
Miles MacDonnell, who runs the winery, is the reason that I even visited the booth in the first place. He was right next to the Titus booth and he asked me to “stick my finger out.” Honestly, how could I not listen to this guy? He placed a drop of the Estate’s Myer Lemon Olive Oil on my pointer finger and poured me their 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. I was shocked that the combination of the lemony olive oil and the cherry cab actually paired very well together. The cab mellowed out the tanginess of the lemon and vice versa. Both products were very clean tasting, with no heavy, lingering aftertaste. The pairing was a great treat, especially considering what usually happened when people ask you to pull their fingers.
Tastings are by reservation only, so if you are headed out to Rutherford, give them a call.
Once again, the Wine 2.0 boys threw a great party. I met so many wonderful new contacts and Twitter friends via the plasma screens streaming tweets all night. I do look forward to the next event and the continuation of the fusion of wine (food) and technology through social media and beyond.
Now, I am hungry!
my social media competition.
I just stumbled upon a great social media white paper. The 26 page pdf SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INDUSTRY REPORT: How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow is written by Michael A. Stelzer of Writing White Papers. The report surveyed over 700 social media marketers, asking them open ended questions about the industry. If you don’t want to read the entire thing, go here to watch a video that explains some of the highlights. After reading all 26 pages, I do have to say that I am concerned.
I have been told time and time again that the niche service I provide is a much needed one in Sonoma County (and the marketing industry as a whole) and that I need to help bring the Wine Country into the Web 2.0 world. With so many “Social Media Consultants, Guru’s and Marketers” that follow me online, I figured that maybe some of them might actually have some experience with the subject matter that they claim to be an expert on. According to the report, I may be wrong.
The report justified my own personal commitment to social media and gave me a better understanding of what I should expect (or not expect) from my competition (aka those social media marketers that claim to know it all). I have been using social media for years and my time spent on my iphone or on my laptop is almost embarrassingly high. Honestly, ask my friends and they all will tell you I need to have my iphone within an arm’s length at all time. A debate on if this is healthy or not is another subject. Apparently (a positive and a negative for me), my competition isn’t as dedicated and knowledgeable on the subject as I am. Here, I do want to state, that I know not all new social media people can be put into this stereotype and I am sure their are many respectable social media newbies out there. Right now it seems like social media marketing is the hottest trend and everyone is trying to jump on the bandwagon.
Some highlights of the report include:
“When asked to rate their experience using social media marketing for their businesses, a significant 72% of marketers have either just started or have been using social media for only a few months. ” What?? I know the industry is relatively new, but a few months, come on!
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“There is a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, the median weekly time commitment was two hours per week. However, for folks who have been doing this for a few months, the median jumped to 10 hours a week. And for people who have been doing this for years, their median is 20+ hours each week.” The longer you have been involved with social media, the more you understand that it does take a lot of time… You also know it pays off.
“The longer you invest, the greater return you are gonna get”
– Michael Stelzer
So, to conclude, I will never claim to know all the answers. That isn’t what social media is about. It is about trial and error…. It is about being able to adapt and react quickly, it is about being honest with your consumers and most important it is about COMMITMENT and PASSION . I am happy to report that I can proudly say I am capable of all of this…. Can a social media guru who just started truly say that?
shanaray.wordpress.com 