Schupp Company Blog

A Match Made In Monkey Heaven

Friday, February 19th, 2010

So I’m at a friend’s house for a Fat Tuesday celebration, and as I’m hovering over the pot of jambalaya I noticed something interesting on his kitchen counter. First off, he has a banana rack (not to be confused with a banana hammock) to display his fresh bananas. I found that very intriguing and very metrosexual. Secondly, the Chiquita bananas had little monkey stickers on them. What happened to the traditional, blue banana sticker that I subconsciously equate with a fresher, superior tasting banana? Oh, that sticker is on the bananas in a new video game for the Wii.

It appears as though Chiquita and Sega have teamed up for a little cross promotion. The famous blue-stickered banana will be featured in the new “Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll” game for the Nintendo Wii. In exchange, Chiquita is promoting the game release on 180 million bananas in grocery stores (and on banana racks) near you.

Pulled from an article at Cincinnati.com, the Chiquita people describe the relationship like so:

“We feel that this is a natural fit – to promote healthy and fresh snacking while exercising on a fun game,” Chiquita Brands International spokesman Ed Loyd said. “We’ll obviously be tracking any changes in volume, but the key thing for us is to build the brand.”

It seems like a “natural fit” indeed, Ed. You got my attention.

The deal, which does not involve money changing hands, follows last fall’s national TV ad campaign, Chiquita’s first in more than 20 years. In addition, the company is said to be aggressively pursuing other brand licensing deals for products such as its frozen fruit smoothie concentrate and banana bread mix.

The Chiquita presence adds to a growing list of in-game ads. Well-known titles such as EA’s Madden NFL football franchise and even the space opera “Halo 3” now routinely include in-game ads or product tie-ins.

Tags: Chiquita Bananas, Cross Promotion, food, marketing, Product Placement, products
Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

I Have a Hunch…

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

The other day I was sitting at my desk and I heard a grumble… My stomach… Looking at the clock, it was well past Noon, so I started to ponder what to have for lunch. If you’re like me and know downtown St. Louis, there aren’t many exciting choices, especially if you been to all three in the last week. I then remembered a site I came across recently that could possibly help me decide what to do – hunch.com

What the hell is Hunch, you ask?  The brainchild of Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake and partners Chris Dixon and Tom Pinckney (co-founders of SiteAdvisor and grads of Harvard and MIT), it’s a decision-making site, customized for you.  By asking a few questions when you log on (around 10 or so) Hunch gets to know you, and provides an answer – or a hunch, I guess.

Hunch is basically a personalized recommendation engine. But rather than, say, track your purchase history the way Amazon does, Hunch uses a combination of your answers to personal questions and topics, plus community feedback. The wisdom of crowds gets coupled with your own quirks to help you make decisions.

I had played with the site a bit before now, but I hadn’t actually tried with a clear goal in mind.  So here goes:

It’s not bootcamp day, so I’ll be a little indulgent…

Spicy?  Sure!  Why not…

Um…  No.

I really don’t care…  I’m just really hungry!

Seafood?  Does this count?

Yes…  I’ll be at my desk, uh, working…

Lasagna!?!?  Sounds good, but seems a little heavy for lunch.  The site did give me a total of 24 “hunches”, including Thai, bacon & eggs, a burrito and PBJ.  The list was ranked based on how I answered the questions above.  Pretty cool.

If you’re not happy with suggested “hunches”, you can help improve the site by adding your own or editing already published topics after you’ve “played” at least five topics.  Upon creating a new topic, other Hunch users can vote on how good or complete it is, and anyone can add questions and results to it. Hunch’s staff reviews the submissions before adding them to the library.

While Hunch does cover a plethora of topics (over 4,000, with more added everyday), I probably would not use it to make “real” decisions.  If you have 30 extra seconds to kill, maybe you’d use Hunch instead of doing a quick Google search.  More than anything, it’s fun. Give it a try…
Now…  only if Jimmy John’s served Lasagna…

Tags: food, interactive, popular, trends
Posted in Culture, Online, Water Cooler | No Comments »

Meet Me in St. Louis

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

My city get’s a bad rap – and, to be honest, I’m not sure why. Alright, so I suppose it doesn’t have the best track record on crime; the City Proper has one of the highest per-capita crime rates in America. And, in 2006, just a few days after the Cardinals won the World Series, it was announced that St. Louis was one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

Geographically we don’t win any points either. We’re located smack in the middle of the heartland in a state whose official instrument is the fiddle and elected officials frequently – and quite embarrassingly, proudly – mispronounce its name: “Miz-ur-uh,” thus sounding unquestionably “small-town” rather than polished and metropolitan.

So, OK – on paper we might not look so hot, and I guess I can see why people not from here would find St. Louis a little inconsequential at best; unfavorable at worst. But wait: There’s reason to love St. Louis. Many reasons in fact, and no it’s not all about beer and baseball (although the city does offer plenty of both). Here, my list of five reasons to love this town:

(1) Seriously, it’s Really Not That Dangerous: I wouldn’t recommend hanging out in any dark alleyways with a purse full of cash in certain parts of St. Louis, but that’s true of any city…anywhere. Also, that ranking of St. Louis as the “Most Dangerous City” back in 2006 was done by a research and publishing company known as “Morgan Quitno Press.” Now – aside from the fact this company is located in Kansas, which right of the bat indicates they’re shady as hell and likely have it out for all big cities in Missouri that don’t bare their state’s name – even the FBI has called BS on them. The problem is that they use their crime statistics to directly compare cities, but fail to take into consideration factors like population density, the degree of urbanization, modes of transportation, economic conditions, etc. In 2007, The American Society of Criminology said the rankings Morgan Quitno used in their report are “baseless and damaging.” What’s true about St. Louis is that between 2006 and 2007, overall crime in the city dropped 15.6% and reached a 35-year low. In 2009, St. Louis didn’t even make the top 15 on Forbes list of most dangerous cities.

(2) It’s Cheap! I Mean, Affordable: According to the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association, Greater St. Louis has an extremely affordable cost of living, one that’s well below the U.S. metro average. In fact, in 2008 St. Louis tied for the average lowest cost of living among the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., and it’s currently ranked the lowest for the first quarter of 2009.

It doesn’t cost a lot to get around here either. Gas prices in St. Louis are consistently under the U.S. average, generally $0.10-$0.15 less.

What to do with all the money you save on gas and easily maintaining a certain standard of living? Why not buy a house? St. Louis boasts the second most affordable housing market among the 20 largest U.S. cities. Who can’t love that in this economy?

(3) Good Eats: T-Ravs & Gooey Butter Cake. Need I say more? Actually, yes, I do need to say more because St. Louis has some of the best restaurants for a city of its size, not to mention one located in the middle of what many might call, “nowhere.”  Gerard Craft of Niche was recognized by Food & Wine Magazine as one of 2008’s Best New Chefs in America. Monarch’s Brian Hale has been featured in Gourmet and Bon Appetite Magazines. Most recently, the president flew Chris Sommers – owner of Pi in U City – nearly 900 miles from St. Louis to D.C. to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff; apparently the president had tasted one of Chris’ divine pizza-pies while on the campaign trail and just couldn’t get enough.

In addition to renowned chefs, St. Louis’ cuisine is also heavily influenced by the many different German, Irish and Italian immigrants who came by the droves in the 19th century. Districts like The Hill, The Central West End, Soulard, U-City Loop, Dog Town, and the Grove offer up amazing eats fit for a NYC bistro, but priced-right for a fiddle-plucking St. Louis-Missourian.

4. Everybody Knows Your Name: OK, not really, but they do want to know where you went to High School. The “High School Question” probably isn’t unique to St. Louis, but it certainly is something we all do – if we’re “local.” Where this comes from or the reason for asking isn’t exactly clear, but just like the Red Knot Sandpiper intuitively migrates 18,000 miles every year from the southern-most tip of South America to Northern Canada and back again, a true St. Louisian instinctively knows to ask this question to another St. Louisian. The answer to the question is what’s important as it tells the asker a great deal about the other person – where he or she grew up; who their friends were; where they went to church; who they might both mutually know; etc. And that’s what’s great about it – it’s an “I-want-to-get-to-know-you” kind of thing because people in St. Louis like getting to know other people, even when there’s no indication we’d ever meet again. We’re a rather social bunch by nature, and it makes this town one of the friendliest I’ve ever known.

5. There’s a Ton of Stuff to Do!: Most people know St. Louis is home to three professional sports teams; most people know about the Arch; and I would surmise that most people know about the Mississippi River and Anheuser-Busch. What people – not from here – don’t know is that St. Louis has a boatload of things to do. Forrest Park – site of the 1904 World’s Fair – is one of the nation’s largest – it’s more than 500 acres bigger than Central Pack in New York. In it are incredible attractions including the St. Louis Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in the U.S., and what’s more – it’s free! Forrest Park also has the Saint Louis Art Museum, the History Museum, the Science Center, the Muny – the oldest and largest outdoor musical theatre – two golf courses, tennis, trails, soft ball fields, boating…the list goes on and on. If you’ve got kids, St. Louis offers up endless possibilities with attractions like the St. Louis City Museum – named one of the “World’s 10 Best Public Spaces” in 2005 by Project for Public Spaces. Not long ago, St. Louis’ Magic House children’s museum was named as the #1 National Attraction for Child Appeal by Zagat Survey. It actually ranked better than Disney’s Magic Kingdom; say what?! Rounding out the list of kid-friendly activities are the Missouri Botanical Garden, Grant’s Farm, the Butterfly House, and The Museum of Transportation. If you prefer more adult activities, St. Louis knows how to entertain with hundreds of outdoor music events, festivals, art shows, wine tastings and social occasions that are often – you guessed it – free (and have booze!)

So there it is – my shameless and unsolicited diatribe on all the reasons to meet me in St. Louis. While maybe not the rebranding campaign my city needs, it’s from the heart(land).

Tags: food, st. louis
Posted in Culture, Miscellaneous, Water Cooler | No Comments »

Starbucks Goes Micro?

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

It looks like Starbucks is rolling out a new coffee shop concept that is being presented as the anti-Starbucks. The Fifteenth Avenue East coffee store is being test marketed in Starbuck’s hometown of Seattle. (The Seattle Times Article)

What are the main differences you ask? Well first of all, the stores are being named after the neighborhood intersections on which they’re placed. It gives off that local vibe that so many Starbucks-haters are searching for in their gourmet-coffee-to-go. They’ve also applied for a liquor license. It looks like these coffee shops will be serving beer and wine in the evenings. Now this is truly brilliant. Starbucks has taken one of the single advantages independent coffee houses have used to attract customers away from the coffee behemoth and is using it against them. They’re also adding mild entertainment like poetry readings and small bands to add to the quaint homeliness. Now coffee shop patrons can feel like they’re supporting a neighborhood start-up while dumping their money into the corporate coffee monster. Good luck, ma and pa, you never stood a chance.

Now I for one am not a Starbucks-hater. As a matter of fact, I hit a Starbucks at least four times a week. But the beauty of launching this new coffee shop concept is that now I have the illusion of choice. Instead of deciding how far I want to walk to a Starbucks in the morning (across the street, around the block, down two blocks or driving through on my way to work), I can decide whether or not I want to support a “local” or “national” décor … even though we know they’re both national chains. Ultimately the money goes to the same place. But it doesn’t look as bad seeing two green mermaids staring each other down from opposite sides of the street.

When it’s all said and done, I’m still going to need that cup of joe to get my brain moving in the morning. It’s nice to know that I’ll be able to stop in the same place for a cold beer to slow things down in the evening. Maybe they’ll even offer a nice cheese plate or hummus? That’d be nice.

Tags: food, marketing, news
Posted in Culture, Miscellaneous, Water Cooler | 5 Comments »

Like He-Man, I Have the Power.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

My business card says ACD. Which, as far as I’m concerned, means Authority to Consistently Delegate. That’s why I’ve handed our summer copywriting intern the plum assignment of writing this blog entry for me.

Dan, if you nail this, I think I hear some sell sheets, direct mail, newsletters and direct response ads beckoning you. Make this one book-worthy…

Hi, I’m Dan, the new guy. The intern. The bottom of the barrel.

I just graduated with honors from the prestigious Missouri J-School, but when the time came for my summer internship interview at Schupp, I was a little nervous. You see, my resume, whose highlights include one other summer-internship and two years as a waiter/busboy at an old folks café, wasn’t as beefy as I’d like. However, there was one sparkling nugget that I felt would grab everyone’s attention…my year as a sandwich artist for Quizno’s.

Later, when I got the internship, I was told it was because of my portfolio. But, I think the real reason was my time at Quizno’s. If you can make it at a Quizno’s, you can make it anywhere.

I worked at Quizno’s three summers ago. It was a time of many cherished memories. Like, the rude customers who wouldn’t hesitate to utterly demoralize me for the slightest thing, or, my smelly, lazy-eyed co-worker who was caught up in the fantasy of Worlds of Warcraft and online gaming. Then there was the thrill of cleaning a bathroom that took the beating of a 300-pound man who had just destroyed a $12 foot-long prime rib sandwich and large Diet Coke. And my personal favorite, doing whatever my 17 year-old boss, who was two years younger than me, asked me to do. Oh yeah, she was also my little sister.

Yeah, Quizno’s was a joy. But what I experienced is what I believe most employers should love to see on a resume – “Quizno’s sandwich artist”. See that listed under employment history and they should automatically know that the person actually bold enough to put that on a resume is a good worker.

The traits an employer can expect a Quizno’s sandwich artist to have are endless. For dealing with rude customers crap, you know that a former sandwich artist is patient and good with clients. For having to put up with a customer’s actual crap, you know that they are hard working and devoted to the job. For having to deal with co-workers who attend live-action, medieval role-playing scenarios, you know that they can work with any partner, under any circumstances. And for doing whatever their younger sister tells them to do means they’ll do anything for a job.

Like I said, there’s more to a resume than most employers see. I’m just glad Schupp was able to spot and interpret all my Quizno’s sandwich artist qualifications.

Tags: food, schupp company
Posted in Culture, Water Cooler | No Comments »

Pizza Roll Lunches

Monday, July 13th, 2009

It’s Wednesday. 1:27 pm. I’m sitting at my desk, scarfing my lunch of salad, rice and beans before I settle back into work, and not thinking too much of it. My budget is not exactly robust these days, so whatever is cheap enough, healthy enough and tasty enough is enough to satisfy my belly. But there’s nothing really remarkable about any part of the spread. So why am I blogging about this? Chill. It gets better.

I take a big gulp of water, and see a flash of silver out of the corner of my eye. Huh?!? I look to my left and remember — Yes! — I did treat myself to Scooby snacks the last time I grocery shopped! Sweeeet! I tear them open at the corner, and 3 blues, 2 reds, 2 greens (Yesss! My favorite!), a purple and an orange tumble onto my desk. “Velma’s looking a bit like Fred these days,” I think, and then all of a sudden — WOAH. The Scooby snacks take me back to the summers of yore. Lookout, it’s about to get nostalgic up in here.

With the first gummy bite of a green Mystery Machine, some of my favorite summer afternoon memories came rushing back. Ah, summer… Sweet, sweaty summer. The season of packed pools, picnic baskets, family vacations, bike rides to the sno-cone place, sandboxes, sprinkler-running, sidewalk chalking, hula hoop contests, pogo sticks, sleep-away camp, pizza roll lunches —

— Hold it. Let’s pause on that last one. Pizza roll lunches. Man, pizza roll lunches were wayyy underrated. They were friggin’ amazing. I know you know what I mean. When you’re a kid, pizza roll lunches happen on those days where you wake up late, spend the day at the pool doing cannonballs and flips off the edge while your mom screams, “You’re going to crack your skull open!!!” so you move to the high dive and quit after a belly flop or two, only to realize that someone organized a game of Sharks and Minnows and so your little minnow self tries to avoid the big kid sharks but you just can’t swim with enough agility but that’s okay because it’s adult swim time for 10 minutes and time to lather up the sunscreen so you can spend another hour diving for pennies and those pink plastic rings even though you’ll be underwater so you really don’t see the point of putting on sunscreen — “What? It’s time to go?!? 5 more minutes, please oh please oh please? Mooommmm, we just got here!” — and then Mom says she has pizza rolls in the freezer.

You stop mid-splash, wide-eyed in childlike wonderment. “Pizza rolls???”

Everyone knows, pizza rolls automatically cancel out all of the negative aspects of leaving the pool, so you do a celebratory dolphin-dive-handstand-underwater-backflip, then scramble out of the water faster than you can say “tiny pockets of awesome.” Cheesy, bready, saucy little pillows of yum — cheese for me and pepperoni for the little brother — baked in the oven so they’re nice and crispy, and you bite the corners off so they cool faster and when you clear your plate, you know there are still a few left on the baking sheet that are the absolute perfect temperature for stuffing in your mouth whole.

By the time you’ve finished this glorious feast and washed it down with a juice box, your swimsuit has dried and it’s afternoon cartoon time on Mom’s bed, or the couch, or the beach towel you’ve been wearing like a toga. Did I mention there are ice pops in this memory of mine? Of course there are ice pops, and of course they’re the perfect balance of icy and melty. Because that’s how things go in memories.

And when you wake up from your swimming- and junk-food- and cartoon-induced nap, it’s still summer. And you get to do it all over again tomorrow.

Oh, to be that excited about lunch again! It’s unfortunate that the airlines don’t have their R&D teams figuring out this time travel thing. Hello, business opportunity! But until we can go back in time, or age in reverse, or persuade Mark Schupp to give us summer Friday hours, we have to get excited about the joys of adulthood. Like looking forward to all the great things we haven’t experienced yet.

Speaking of…

Tomorrow’s menu: PB&J and strawberries. And another pack of Scooby snacks.

Tags: food, schupp company
Posted in Culture, Miscellaneous, Recreaction, Water Cooler | No Comments »