Incite Kitchen

Sometimes...

...it really is a dog eat dog world... literally. 

Makes Me Wonder...

Everyday I go home and walk my dog.  Most nights I pass this old BMW.  When I do, I always notice that there is a roll of toilet paper sitting in the passenger seat.  I have no idea why it's there.  It seems to have been there for quite some time now.  It just makes me wonder.

McCain Sings Streisand

It's been said many times before... "in the future, Presidential Elections will have the ability to be won or lost based on old content dragged out on the Internet."  I think the future might be today.  Check out this bit from SNL.

What's In A Name?

If ever there were a reason to carefully choose the name of your company, this might be it.

Interesting or Pathetic... You Decide

This post isn't aiming to be insightful or enlightening.  I just wanted to take a moment to share with the world the beauties I've found in being both a Costco member and an iPhone owner. 
Learning to manipulate Costco so it actually works for a family of two has been an interesting and prosperous adventure.  I've worked down my grocery bills so they are consistently between $50 and $90 per week.  Additionally, it has also given me a better than expected platform to do what I love most... study human behavior. 
Although the iPhone isn't the smallest or best cameraphone on the market, I've found it to be exceptionally accommodating as well as relatively fast to access and conceal.  I have yet to be asked to leave a store or to put away my camera (something I've grown accustomed to in my line of work) since I started shooting with it several months ago.  My guess is that most people probably just assume I'm playing a game or checking email.  Below are three such examples of why my existence is either entirely interesting or pathetic.

Uke Mashup Heaven

 
I first started fiddling around on the ukulele in 1998.  I had just graduated college and quickly realized that playing bass by myself just wasn't fun.  I also concluded that traveling with a guitar would be a pain.  So, I picked up the uke.  Since then, I've searched for ways to learn songs that I actually knew and liked but rarely have I found much of anything.  Occasionally I'd find a Beatles song book or a 60s song book, but overall I was stuck playing songs such as Five Foot Two and Arthur Godfrey-era tunes.  A few days ago I discovered what Russell Davies, just a few days prior, dubbed "the best thing on the Internet, ever."  I agree with him.  Let's Play Ukulele  connects with your last.fm profile, discovers what you like to listen to, and sends you the tabs/chord charts so you can play them.  While something tells me that the ukulele community wasn't the first to do this, it's great to see the ukulele on the cutting edge of technology.

Lisa Wasn't Kidding About Her Bedazzler

Thanks for the Valentine's Day Card and Candy!

Heros of the ad game aren't human, but they have heart

Horses, dogs, pigeons, woodland animals and wayward parade balloons scored the most points with Super Bowl 42 watchers who participated in our Armchair Ad Review poll. That's not surprising given that the same people said they thought men and women were typically portrayed as "dumber than they really are" in ads; while kids are "fairly and realistically portrayed" or shown being "smarter than they really are." We didn't ask about how animals were portrayed, but based on the ads that won, I'd said they fared pretty well. 

Consistent with other national polls, the Budweiser Hank "Rocky" ad pulled the most votes, more than double the next highest ranking ad for Fed Ex featuring grossly over sized carrier pigeons.  The Sobe Life Water Dancing Lizards were a close third, followed by the Coke Classic parade balloons and the woodland creatures screaming for Bridgestone.

Ironically, only Sobe Life Water made the list of products people who took our poll said they were most interested in as a result of an ad they saw during the game.  Audi (highest scoring) and Walt Disney's new movie, "Wall-E" also also scored highly in that regard.  Which begs the ultimate question of who really won the ad game after all?  If interest leads to action, I'd say Sobe gets the trophy for not only being memorable but also measurable. 

Googly Eyes

I'm not really sure that this has any application toward what we typically write about.  Maybe I'll realize something brilliant later.  Nonetheless this video caught me off-guard this morning (very funny) and I felt like sharing it.  The only thing I can think of is that I'd love to see a version of this movie except with a man and his iPhone.  Everywhere he goes he's being watched and followed by Google Maps... yet he won't give up his iPhone.  Seems like a logline to me.  Heck, with the most recent update from Apple for all of us iPhone users, it's pretty much the case.  Perhaps that is what will become of Dan Vassar (from the currently defunct Journeyman tv show).

Organic Mac & Cheese: The epitome of the conscious consumer

Healthy.  Safe.  Authentic.  Convenient.  Familiar.  Good for me and my fellow man. 

This pretty much sums up the findings of a new study from BBMG, Global Strategy Group and Bagatto who used ethnography and survey work to better define  "conscious consumers." 

It's also an apt description of a comfort food you can find in shopping aisles, fast food drive-thrus and gourmet restaurants.

According to the study authors, companies seeking to market to these "conscious consumers" would do wise to follow the same three simple rules Kraft did in introducing an organic version of their classic staple:

1)  Be honest.  Don't pretend to be something you're not.  (Pasta and cheese, please.)

2)  Be realistic about what matters to your consumer...taking care of themselves first...and deliver it.  (Feed me, now!) Quality, affordability and convenience still matter.  Only when you deliver those can you layer in (and find interest in) higher order benefits like sustainable, eco-friendly, etc.

3)  Be in it for the long haul.  People don't change behaviors overnight.  Take small steps in the right direction over large leaps in unfamiliar terrain. (Give me my comfort food...and maybe a side salad.)

Kudos to these three firms for going beyond self-reported survey work to study actual consumer behavior and derive results from there.  While the results may still be a bit overstated (9 in 10 consumers say the words "conscious consumer" describes them well), they are at least getting closer to the truth about what people actually do in the green space vs. what they say they do.