Hungry For Delivery.

Growing up, I anxiously looked forward to Friday nights. Yes, school was out for the weekend, but there was much more to look forward to --delivery Fridays! Although the options were limited to pizza, chinese-food, or fried-chicken, it sure was fun. 


I recall being the one who would fetch the paper menus from the same drawer we kept the Yellow and White Pages in, spend 30 minutes arguing with my sisters over what we would order to later have to obtain approval from the "accounting department", Mom. After approval from Mom, we would place order and 30 to 45 minutes later, "Ding-Dong!"


Now, flash forward Twenty some years later and the game of ordering delivery has dramatically changed. Let's approach this from the perpective of yours truly, a single male in his late twenties. It's a weeknight, you're home from work, you're hungry, and you realize you haven't gone grocery shopping or you're too tired to cook. In marketing we call this Desire Recognition and Desire Development --I'm hungry and what do I do about it. Naturally the next step is NOT towards the drawer containing the Yellow pages, no. There is no such drawer in my home, rather I proceed to my laptop. When I open my browser, like most people, Facebook is my startup page, and there are already "timely" ads featuring local take-out and delivery joints; we call this Desire Fulfillment. 

As a self-proclaimed foodie, I already have a select number of establishments I frequently order delivery from but every now and then, I'll log on to Yelp, type in "restaurants" and receive both sponsored results and organic results for relevant local restaurants to choose from, many of which has a website from which you can browse the menu, add your order to your shopping cart, pay, and 30 to 45 minutes later, "Ding-Dong"!


In terms of social media having an impact in the ultimate outcome of what we decide to consume, Lenny’s Sub Shop, a Memphis, Tennessee–based sandwich chain, launched a Facebook promotion on Monday February 21st that has so far tripled the company’s Facebook fan count and its orders.


According to a report from Berkeley Media Studies Group, Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age, "intereactive food and beverage marketing must be viewed within the broader context of the changing nature of advertising and marketing. The rapid growth of the Internet and proliferation of digital media are fundamentally transforming how corpo­rations do business with young people in the twenty-first century. As food and beverage companies announce changes in their TV advertising, they have already begun to shift their marketing into a broad array of new-media efforts."


There is no doubt that the way we order delivery, among other things has dramatically changed over the years and this shift in how we consume is increasingly influenced by social media, Game Theory Marketing, and interactive food and beverage marketing. E-marketing is here to stay, ready to point you in the appropriate direction the next time you're hungry and down for some delivery.


Cheers, 


Sources:
Digitalads.org
QSR
Forbes

The Breadth and Scope of Social Media.

Before the Thirty-year authoritarian leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power on February 11th, there were thousands of Facebook groups and thousands of Twitter feeds that culminated in the organized public protests held in Cairo's Tahir square by over Two Million peaceful protestors.

Wael Ghonim a Google executive and one of the key organizers of the uprising who was detained and held by Egyptian authorities for 12 days. Ghonim helped organize the revolution on Facebook by creating a government protest group and joining several other groups in addition to actively tweeting with his "group members" on where and when to meet and the importance of peaceful protest. He plans to write a book about the effect of social media on political activism called "Revolution 2.0."

Although random and individual Facebook "Likes" and Twitter "Followers" may not represent a general consensus about any given product or idea, Egypt's "revolution 2.0" has demonstrated that social media can be a very powerful tool, medium, or platform for individuals of a similar mindset to speak out in favor or against an idea, product, company, or in Egypt's case, governments. Sharon Waxman from WaxWord.com accredits the organized protests to "visionary products created by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Evan Williams at Twitter" as the backbone of what is becoming a regional revolution and the modern day communications that are undoing what decades of repression wrought.

So does social media need "connections" to be effective? Yes! Beyond a doubt, no brand or organization will be able to foster the kind of cult-like loyalty that brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods, or Chipotle have been able to achieve on product alone. Connections require emotion to bear weight.

Cheers,

Sources:

Egypt's Social Media Revolution

How Egypt's Social Media Revolution Could Spread Across the Middle East

Google exec Wael Ghonim in Egypt says long live the revolution 2.0