Food anyone?

By Kellie J. Lala

 

I find myself eating out more than eating in!  I am going in many different directions on any given day, so I was happy to see that in a recent Radio Sales Today (4/4/13) article that the 500 largest U.S. restaurant chains saw a modest 4.9% sales growth in 2012.  As you hear on the radio and see on the T.V., this is an extremely crowded category and very competitive.  The fastest-growing large chains in 2012 were led by Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, Jimmy John's and Cheddar’s (never mind that I have only heard of 2 of these).  McDonald’s must be lovin’ it as they saw 4.2% growth last year. Subway continues to be the second-largest U.S. chain, followed by Starbucks, Wendy’s and Burger King.  We all have 3 hunger triggers every day and thus where do we go to satisfy those?  If you run a local eating establishment and would like to get a larger slice of the pie, contact us.  We would love to help you grow your business.   Talk to you soon!

 

 

Countdown to Tim Miles -- a few seats left

By Julie Hein

Tim's blog today was great.  If you'd like to see this Amazon best-selling author speak in the corridor, just holler, but do it soon.  E-mail here.  On Thursday, 4/18, he's at Brown Deer in Coralville.  On Friday, 4/19, he's at the National Czech and Slovak Museum.  Both have registration at 8:45 and he speaks from 9am-12noon.

Read Tim's blog here.  You should probably sign up for it.  He shares a lot of great things about advertising, customer service and humanity.

Client Seminar is Two Weeks Away--Want to Come?

Tim Miles is in Coralville the morning of 4/18 and in Cedar Rapids the morning of 4/19.  Join us?  Let us know here.

Advertising Today: What’s Working, What Isn’t Working, And Why

How much of your advertising budget is wasted? About half? Do you know which half? 

Does it bother you that you don’t know? 

In our over-communicated, back-button society, consumers are bombarded by 5000 messages every day. Usually, just one wins. Is it yours? Would you like it to be yours?

On Thursday, April 18 (or Friday April 19) bestselling author Tim Miles will take you on a magical, 3-hour tour - full of examples - through the human mind and the sticky powers of persuasion. He’ll show you how to sequence mental images to make your company the one in your category that consumers think about first and feel the best about. 

Wait. Did that sentence just end with a preposition? Yep. That’s one of the lessons. This is advertising - not third grade English class. 

It's also practical, actionable stuff that works.

We’re going to talk about:

*  The Three Controls of Marketing

*  Every Type of Media (which special consideration for what social media is and isn’t)

*  How the brain works

*  How to begin to train a customer’s brain

*  How to continue to train customers’ brains

*  The whats, whys, whos and hows of Shareworthy Customer Service

*  How the heck to actually execute the stuff we talk about.

And, if time permits, we’ll go through a few of your specific questions. 

If you’re ready to sonic boom your business, we hope you’ll join us as we talk about the three controls of marketing.