tomatolounge

If you work in the retail industry, you are probably familiar with this marketing strategy, which is based on connecting two brands via the same profile of customers. For example, Nike and Apple, developed an ipod application that would allow runners to log their runs, create music tracks based on their work out and even connect with the running community to measure themselves against others. Car companies are familiar with this concept and regularely develop version that are associated with same profile customers, lets say Subaru and Eddie Bauer for the outdoor experience

Since the “World Series” are back in New York (the equivalent of the Champions’ League Final for soccer, I noticed that the two New York franchises, the Mets and the Yankees have granted food court licenses to two different brands in their newly built ballpark.

One is Nathan’s, a long-standing feature of the New York City landscape that is also known for its annual hot dog eating contest at the Coney Island amusement park in Brooklyn. Very New York and very Blue Collar.

Another new vendor granted at CitiField, the Mets ballpark (a branding tactic consisting of name rights for stadiums in the US and fast-expanding in Europe) is ShakeShack. This is a more upscale eatery, that originated at Madison Square Park in New York City’s Flatiron district. “The Shack” has most  Flatironers call it, was created by Danny Meyer and His “11 Madison” Restaurant located accross the park.

It feature more sophisticated hot dogs and burgers and is mainly attracting young urbanite and bankers working around the area.

I am not a native New Yorker, so I cannot claim to be a huge fan of one or the other baseball teams, but with time I found myself following the Mets more than the Yankees.

Now the interesting part is, I always loved Nathan’s hot dog because of their association to New York City, but I don’t really connect with the “Yankee” brand. On the other hand, I experienced the “Shack” numerous times, but never connected to the more  hot dogs.

I am curious to know if both the mets and the yankees went through a fan-base food habit analysis to determine what brand would be best-suited to connect with their fan fase and their taste or if it was just purely financial opportunity. the first case would tell me that the Mets have a more upscale fan base than the yankee and is percieived as a white colar crowd.

Considering the ticket prices at yankee stadium the perception is the opposite. Interesting brand associations and disconnections.

Today news broke from NYT that NYCB had laid off a large group dancers. http://bit.ly/KpQc7 Although this news is understand in a difficult economy especially for the Arts. Did NYCB handle the lay off in a professional manner?

I think absolutely not!

NYCB committed the ultimate PR sin by declining to give any comment. Didn’t anyone there take PR 101? Never say no comment. In doing so, the company projects a negative ruthless image to the public.

Naturally NYT sought out to find these laid off dancers and get their reactions. Most of those stories were about worried and shocked dancers feeling lost and confused. This will not help boost ticket sales!

Is an apology from NYCB on its way? I hope so! If I was their PR person I would highly advise it.

Cool Google maps mashup for those of you in New Jack.

Triptrop NYC tells you how long you can expect to travel from point A to B on the MTA’s series of tubes.

Some people are busy developing mobile apps (you know, the kind that fit into 1×1 inch real estate), while some other are still downsizing the customer experience like it is 1965; The concept of a tricycle vehicle used as a retail shop isn’t new (remember the butcher and the bakery on truck driving by on Mondays and Wednesdays in your remote village of France? Or the coffee truck at the corner of Union Square in New York City or the guy selling mint delicacies outside Kyber in Mumbai?) but for some reason I don’t remember seeing such a short vehicle potentially parking anywhere and promoting a global brand product line off the street. Sort of Guerrilla marketing to get in the face of the consumers while parking across Best Buy electronic giant? Very interesting approach though.

STC associates crew celebrates with an international lunch ( sushi- panini – pizza – indian food) its seventeen birthday today.

I was over at the Museum of Modern Art last week and came across the Pipilotti Rist video installation.

This is actually something we have tried to do for TATA Communications with at GTM in 2008. The idea consisted of immersing the audience and making the audience at the center stage of a ongoing video projection of time lapse movies of locations around the world to demonstrate acceleration and network global footprint. Obviously it required multiple projections and a great deal of screen real estate to get to the effect desired but seeing this installation at the MoMA was a good idea of how close this could have been.

So today was the day we all reported to 245 fifth avenue. It has been so strange but exhilarating in many ways, having so much space to walk around and finally having a great set up to deliver even better work. So, good bye to 224 that was our home for 10 years and where STC grew from being four years old and welcome to 245 on 5th on the 24 th floor! I will post more picture of the space when signage is completed and kitchen is set up.

Here is the entrance lobby:

Here is the lobby light and wall of fame:

Good bye to our old office:

Some of the furniture was delivered on Friday night, and the built in cabinets and kitchen are coming together.
The floor to ceiling graphics will be put in place today and throughout the week.

Someone is into Obama in my hood.

Sadly, the light changed when I went to take the picture and I was not into getting another picture and made my way to the subway. This is a neat form of street/political art and looks cool when there’s a walk signal because it lights up the whole graphic!