What Should I Eat Tonight?

This is my first time blogging, and I am certainly excited to become more hands-on in this new, exciting and expanding aspect of marketing. It's funny how there are always new ways to reach consumers - prior to the blast-off of social media it was all about breaking through clutter and exposure via outdoor (or OOH) advertising. Prior to that, it was all about Malcolm Auld and Direct Marketing. Nevertheless, marketers are constantly experimenting with methods to acheive their KPIs. As such, I aim for this blog to be themed around two of my passions: marketing and food. I feel as though food, hospitality, home cooking and eating out have become a lot more... shall we say, trendier in recent years, and so I feel these increasingly popular topics make a fine pair.

 

In addition to FMCG giants utilising social media within their integrated marketing campaigns, we are also experiencing the rise of ‘food popularity’ where chefs become recognised celebrities (iconic Australian chefs such as Guy Grossi and Margaret Fulton are regularly featured in supermarket chains' advertising messages), as well as sites like foodcandy.com enabling ‘foodies’ to congregate over, well, food. Nowadays there are heaps of mobile applications providing recipes and information on establishments. Not to mention an increasing presence of cooking shows such as Masterchef and Iron Chef which are in turn, supported by social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and the like. I plan to disuss topics such as this over coming weeks, so watch this space.

I have become especially interested in food blogs which examines places to eat – as someone not from Melbourne, I enjoy spending time (though not necessarily copious amounts of money!) sussing out suggested places and drawing my own conclusions (try thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com). In addition to blogs, I enjoy utilising other social media platforms (such as urbanspoon on my iPhone) in conjunction with other systems, such as the paperback The Age Good Food Guide and communication provided by the organisation iteself. Personally, however, I do place a higher amount of integrity in the judgement of other peoples' reviews - I feel they are more honest and realistic over someone who eats out as part of their occupation (you can tell I'm not jealous at all!).

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Marketer or not, do you use blogs (and other social media tools) as a way to find information about your own hobbies, and as it has been suggested, do you rate other consumers' reviews above a paid message provided by the advertiser? Further, why/why not?