Stop The Junk Food

Behind the kitchens at the Food Network, they’ve been cooking up some vey savvy branding – for the Network as as well as for its individual hosts.

Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee are the two biggest brands. The way they are mareketed

provides a good branding lesson: you can occupy the same positioning within a niche, yet own a distinctive brand that sets you apart.

Distinct Brands with the Same Positioning

The positioning these two stars occupy is one of authority in home-making convenience: quick and easy, quality meal preparation for busy women (mostly). Yet each has been able to carve out a separate and distinct brand within that same space.

Taglines that Build Brands

Rachel Ray’s empire is build on the foundation of her very emphatic tagline – “30 minute meals.” The name says it all. Sandra Lee’s tagline is “semi-homemade meals” – preparing meals with the aid of pre-packaged ingredients.

It is essentially the same positioning, but without the exact time period that Ray uses. The implication is the same: you’ll be able to prepare quality meals at home faster.

While both have been able to establish an authority position within the convenience field, interestingly, their authority does not come from industry credentials. The sense of authority they have been able to build comes from their unique personalities and presentation, as well as their individual stories.

They learned how to cook on their own, either because they had to (in Lee’s case) or as in Ray’s case, her mother was in the food service business, and an avid cook

Leveraging a Brand Into Multiple Products

Both have been been able to leverage their brands to create and promote multiple products. Some of Lee’s branded products include: Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking, Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Desserts, Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking II, Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Grilling … she even ventures into Rachael Ray’s turf with Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade 20-Minute Meals.

Rachael Ray’s branded product line includes cookbooks, such as 30-Minute Meals, 30-Minute Meals 2, Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Meals: Cooking ‘Round the Clock,

Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Meals for Kids: Cooking Rocks!, Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes, among others.

And because both of their brands have been established in a highly scalable niche – home convenience, they have been able to easily grow their product lines beyond food, into the further reaches of home-making, on TV, in print, etc. (Lee actually started her brand in the home-making field and then went into food).

Finding Different Marketing Angles Within the Same Niche

In their products as well as in their shows, their distinctive personalities, look, and style etc. further differentiates their brands from one another. But the difference is built on a foundation of strong taglines that embody unique marketing angles within the same niche: 30 minute meals vs semi-homemade.

The lesson here is just because someone else may have established an authority positioning in a niche you want, doesn’t mean you can’t create a different, yet successful brand within the same space.

However attempts to copy or merely imitate a brand within a niche position will not only fail, it will mark you as inauthentic. You need to be able to take unique angle so you can carve out your own space within the niche you want.

More signs of the uncertain times ahead for traditional media in this country have emerged over the past few weeks.

Belo, which owns newspapers like the Dallas Morning News, the Providence Journal, and the Press Enterprise, as well as owns and operates 20 TV stations, said Oct. 1 it was splitting its holdings into two companies: The New A. H. Belo Corp., dedicated to the print properties, and Belo Corp., which will run the TV business.

Then E.W. Scripps said it would take a similar path Oct. 16 when it announced that it would break into two companies: E.W. Scripps Co., which will consist of about 20 newspapers and local television stations, and Scripps Networks Interactive, consisting of Home & Garden Television, the Food Network and Shopzilla.

At about the same time as the Scripps announcement, McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper company in the United States, said its quarterly profits dropped 55 percent for the third quarter, a result of a weakening advertising market.

It’s clear traditional media companies are suffering a significant decline in readership and advertising lineage. Many of the dollars once spent on newspaper ads are being redirected into emerging new media like the Internet as media consumers increasingly log on to online sources to catch up on their world. Hence, companies like Belo and Scripps are separating business units into stand alone companies to cordon off the drag on their revenue and sustain shareholder value and interest.

These are among the largest media companies in the nation. If they aren’t impervious to the change brought on by new digital media, it’s unlikely other traditional media companies will be able to continue down the same path they’re on without making some course corrections along the way.

To be sure, Internet advertising is taking a sizeable bite out of the dollars once devoted to traditional newspaper, television, radio and magazine advertising. Another emerging digital media competing for its piece of the ad budget is out-of-home advertising, and more specifically out of home video advertising on digital signage networks.

In late January, the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) formally launched with the mission of helping to provide standards and best practices for the newly emerging slice of the advertising industry. It was created by many of the largest out-of-home video advertising networks to remove impediments to the growth of the new ad medium.

One of the chief missions of the group is to help advertisers and those who run out-of-home video advertising networks work together “to plan, buy and evaluate the effectiveness of these mediums,” said Mike DiFranza, president and general manager of Captivate Network, one of the 10 companies that founded the group.

The contrast couldn’t be more apparent: On the one hand, many traditional media are scrambling to restructure so they can decouple business units with the potential to be profitable from those suffering from the re-allocation of advertising dollars to new digital media. On the other, a group like OVAB has emerged to help the fledgling medium of out-of-home video advertising build the advertising “street cred” that traditional media long ago mastered.

While it’s a long shot, perhaps there’s an opportunity for traditional media and emerging media, like out-of-home video advertising networks, to help each other. Why shouldn’t traditional media integrate out-of-home advertising networks into their media offering? Certainly, they have the ability to generate content for the medium, they have the relationships with local businesses to both sell the advertising and secure locations for new signs on the network, and they have well-established market research resources to assist in building new audience measurement metrics. Conversely, why shouldn’t emerging new advertising markets welcome the participation of tradition media, which can leverage its strengths to assist the new medium in its maturation?

If you love food and wish you could be your own boss then combining the two could be the right way to go for you. There are many food related businesses you could start if you have the capital. But if you don’t happen to have very deep pockets and still want to be an entrepreneur then one of these 3 businesses might be right for you. And the beauty of it is they each cost under $10,000 to get started.

1. Personal Chef: Ah now here is a wonderful way to let your cooking talents flourish. The personal chef biz is a booming trend these days. Especially with channels like the Food Network airing cooking shows all day. People hosting small parties and events want good food for the guests but without all the extras and cost of hiring a full fledged catering business. It’s also becoming extremely popular for individuals and families with the money to hire personal chefs as well. Preparing healthy ready to eat meals that people can just heat up can be an excellent way to establish a regular clientele.

2. Romantic Catering: Have you ever wanted to start your own catering business? Catering businesses can often become fairly large operations with a lot of headaches. Which might take you away from what you really want to be doing, cooking. Well romantic catering might be right for you then. Often people like to be able to have a well cooked meal at home during a special occasion. They don’t want their privacy to be intruded upon. With this business you have the opportunity to create that experience for others. And it pays well too. Once you’ve prepared a few of these special evenings you’ll have husbands as well as wives knocking down you door.

3. Teaching Cooking Classes: If you really love to cook then you might find inspiration and enjoyment in teaching others how to cook as well. Just because someone watches a cooking show it doesn’t mean they can suddenly do more than boil water. But your love of cooking could help others. There are a few options available to get started. Many local colleges offer people the opportunity to teach non credit classes during the summer months. This can be a good way to get the space you need as well as free advertising through the college’s class catalog. You can of course teach from your home and you can partner up with someone else in a cooking related business to use their kitchen.

Running your own business should be about doing something you love. But because many people don’t necessarily like to cook or have the time you are provided with a business opportunity. In addition many people would like to know how to cook because they cannot. Again more opportunities for you. Either way you’re in luck because most people do love food.