Elevating your product from features and benefits to a larger emotional takeaway is always smart, especially if you do it as thoughtfully as Stouffer's has with their Let's Fix Dinner campaign. After all, why sell noodles when you can sell nostalgia.

The "Let's Fix Dinner" microsite introduces the concept with compelling (and believable) copy:

Whatever happened to family dinner?

Though it's never been more difficult, it's also never been more important to make this time to connect. The benefits of family dinner are just so powerful.

At Stouffer's, we believe there's no better place for our families than the dining room table...and we want to help you get there.

The campaign consists of:

Print Ads, including one with my favorite headline: Are your kids more likely to talk if their mouths are full? Following copy reads: Studies show 72% of teens who ate often with their families said they would go to their parents if they had a problem. Ads also connect the act of eating en famille with lower rates of eating disorders in girls, lower rates of teen drinking and drug use, and increased marital happiness.

An Online Dinner Survey: 6 simple questions about your family's habits and how you compare to other families surveyed.

A Let's Fix Dinner Challenge: An invitation to challenge your own family to eat together more often. A sticky little app that lets you keep a daily meal log, download coupons, and enter a sweepstakes.

Blogger Roundtable: Stouffer's invited 15 influential bloggers and topical experts to start an ongoing conversation about dinner in America via their own blogs, all linkable from the Stouffer's Let's Fix Dinner site.

Family Webisodes: Reality-TV style vignettes of five families all aiming to increase their togetherness time.

Facebook Integration: The campaign not only lives on its Facebook Fan page, but wall postings are sprinkled throughout the microsite.

Twitter: Under the handle Letsfixdinner, Stouffer's is introducing their campaign to hundreds of hungry Tweeples.

Short of skywriting, Stouffer's has utilized every tool available to get the word out about this initiative -- smartly using both paid and unpaid media. It's perfectly timed for tough economic times when consumers are eating out less often. And as a Creative Director, I salute agency JWT New York for producing ads that have just the right homespun tone and visual appeal.

For nothing overlooked and everything prepared perfectly, this month's Warm Blanket Award can be found in your grocer's freezer: well done, Stouffer's.

Labels: dinnertime, Facebook, Mom Bloggers, mom marketing award

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

I'm embarking on a week-long study of choice. Not the political kind. The kind that marketers offer you (or not). It could be different flavors, shipping schedules, payment options, or email frequency.

It could be a choice of charity for a cash back donation, mild/medium/hot sauce, indoor or outdoor seating, smoking or non-smoking, morning or afternoon appointment, red or white, FastPass or cash. I have a theory about how choice affects customer satisfaction, especially in the mom market.

This is where you come in. The more perspectives I get, the more informed blog post I'll write about choice in the end. So...please keep your eyes open this week for what choices you are offered in the course of your daily life. Write 'em down and put them in the comments section of this post. Or email them to me. See, you've got one choice already!

Labels: choice, Customer satisfaction

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

Remember that old Wells Fargo ad, when online banking was just taking off, that proclaimed "We've seen the future of banking and it looks a lot like your kitchen"? Well, I've seen the future of retail and it looks a lot like your living room.

Call it what you will. Social selling. Direct sales. Selling groups. Even home-party businesses. What was once the purview of Tupperware and Avon has exploded into categories ranging from candles to wine, vitamins to jewelry, toys to well...sex toys. There's even a site called HostaPartyonline.com that lists 52 different selling opportunities.

The latest statistics from Direct Selling Association reveal that this is a $29.6 billion industry in the U.S. Of their impressive breakdown of stats, two figures jumped out at me:

- 86.4% of direct sellers are female
- 91.1% of direct sellers work part-time

For those of you who haven't had your coffee yet, allow me to connect the dots: MOMS! It's no wonder that direct selling is so appealing to moms. It allows women to return to work on their own terms and schedules, make some dough, get to see friends (and make new ones), and high-tail it out of the house without kids in tow.

Over the year, I have been invited (typically via evite) to countless such parties, my favorites being for the very design-savvy Stella and Dot jewelry company, Silpada (a good runner-up in the jewelry business), and CAbi, a great line of women's clothing.

If your product lends itself to social selling, the path begins by extending your e-commerce site to this new distribution channel. Then the task of recruiting your sales force begins. Maria Bailey, in her book Mom 3.0, offers sage advice: target moms at a changing point in their lives. The real sweet spot, she shares, is moms with kids in kindergarten or first grade, suddenly in possession of a 6-8 hour window of freedom.

And just as this Mom wave is cresting, someone has figured out how even more dollar signs can be made: through Dads. Last week, the San Francisco chronicle published a story about an even newer trend: Man Cave parties. A new Minnesota company is betting that the same atmosphere that works its sales seduction on women will make guys show up to test out new barbecue gear. I say it's a winning idea. Kind of a men's book club without the book.

What do you think of this trend? Have you been to or hosted a home-based selling party? Could your brand possibly get a shot in the arm from enlisting a direct sales force?

Labels: Avon, Home-Party Businesses, Social selling, Stella and Dot, Tupperware

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.