Remember when food brands targeted women 25 to 54? Remember when we said nobody’s cooking so we can forget promoting food with recipes? How times have changed.

Recently, I found a darling Father’s Day card crafted by my son David when he was six. It was entitled, “Why I Love Dad,” and through pages of drawings, he counted the ways. In addition to the typical, “he takes me to the park,” David also added that “he buys us food” and “he does the laundry.” I’m sure his teacher wondered what mom was doing while dad did these chores. Sharing household responsibilities was an anomaly in that time. Not today.

Stephanie Azzarone in MediaPost asks, “Are dads the new moms?” We have been seeing this trend in newspapers, magazines and on TV. Sometimes it’s because mom prefers being in the workforce and is good at it, and dad takes the supporting homemaker role by choice. With more men out of work than women, dad may have lost his job and mom has become the breadwinner. [more…]

I love Thanksgiving, the all-American holiday that reminds us to give thanks for our blessings and celebrate amidst a bounty of food. Kitchens smell of turkey roasting, pies baking and good things simmering. It’s a simply delicious holiday, celebrated for all the best reasons.

I have my standards. We order a free-range turkey from Whole Foods because we find these turkeys more meaty and more flavorful. And I always make cornbread stuffing from The New York Times International Cookbook, which requires grinding the giblets in a meat grinder, baking cornbread and endlessly chopping onion, celery and green pepper, as well as mincing a lot of garlic, parsley and basil.

BUT I also make pumpkin pie from the recipe on the Libby’s pumpkin can, a Crisco pie crust and the cranberry sauce recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. Sure I’ve toyed with making pumpkin creme brulee or pumpkin cheesecake, using a different crust and making fresh cranberry salsa. But these recipes are tried-and-true and simple, giving me time to explore new recipes for the second dessert I bake and all the side dishes. [more…]

Years ago, when I had a laundry product client, I wanted to do a PR campaign to promote using cloth diapers just one day a week to minimize disposables in the landfill. Thank heavens we didn’t try it. Who would give up a convenient behavior — using disposable diapers — for such an inconvenient option? It would take a lot more green commitment than could be inspired by a PR program to effect that revolution.

Until recently, the same was true of another convenient behavior, eating out. With foodservice sales increasing year upon year, family cooks were ready to hang up the apron. But not so fast. Home cooking is back with a vengence. With the economy in a tailspin, more consumers are going home to the range.

And that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Despite good news about the second-largest harvest of American corn, ever, and projections of record-breaking harvests of wheat and oilseeds from the world’s farmers this year, The Wall Street Journal reports that bumper crops will not offset increasing world demand. [more…]

I ate 12 desserts at one sitting yesterday. It was a recipe tasting for a client whose products are in the baking category.

People are envious when I tell them I get paid to eat desserts. It’s hard work, but somebody has to do it!

Actually, it is work. A tasting isn’t a time to pig out on food and just say whether you like it or not. This is serious business because the recipes are a critical marketing tool. Whether they are used on packaging, on a Web site, in a brochure, or for press releases to the media, recipes from food manufacturers should be designed to stimulate product purchase and usage, and ultimately, provide a positive result to motivate repurchase. [more…]

If people and cultures are bound by their food traditions, Thanksgiving is the unifying holiday that links all Americans to a common heritage. We may modify the traditional menu to include ethnic favorites such as salsa or sushi, or incorporate new culinary trends, like brines or rubs. But the tradition of turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, are imprinted in our taste memories and are the comfort foods we crave at Thanksgiving. [more…]

Any marketer of a food ingredient product who isn’t thinking about recipes is ignoring a critical marketing tool. Every product you purchase of any complexity — your iPod, pda and cell phone — comes with an instruction manual. So why shouldn’t your carrots, your cooking oil and your can of tomatoes come with one, too?

Like technology, some food uses are intuitive, so you can get started easily enough. We can all peel a carrot and crunch it raw. But then what? Just as I want to learn to download podcasts, not just listen to music; or get e-mails wirelessly, not just have a pocket electronic calendar; I will enjoy my carrot more if I can cook it in other ways. We are so familiar with food that we forget that we need to promote usage with smart thinking. [more…]