Business 2.0: As an eager young buyer for gourmet market Cowan & Lobel in Albany, N.Y., Rachael Ray spent hours spying on customers, looking for tipoffs to new trends. One odd pattern she noticed again and again: Many well-to-do shoppers would bypass the produce section and head straight for the prepared-foods counter. That gave her an idea: Why not run a cooking class for harried consumers, showing them how to make gourmet meals in 30 minutes flat?
To Ray, it was just a small way to prop up grocery sales. But a decade later, that simple notion has turned Rachael Ray into a brand on par with Martha Stewart and created a small media empire worth a reported $10 million. Since its debut in 2001 on the Food Network, Ray’s top-rated cooking show, 30 Minute Meals, has spawned three more Ray-hosted shows on the network, 16 cookbooks, a self-titled national magazine, and even a syndicated daytime talk show.
One-man Brands [Business 2.0]
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ClickZ: With all the talk about user-generated content (UGC), marketers often overlook one of the most effective ways to exploit this concept: providing a way for your target audience to share their photos on your site. With today’s tools, photo-sharing is easier and more cost-effective than you might think.
Mediapost: With the childhood obesity issue and food marketing back in the headlines, McDonald’s is launching a summer PR effort it says is in response to consumer rather than political pressure. Six moms will serve as embedded citizen reporters, covering the company from the inside.
Entrepreneur: JetBlue remains the best low-cost carrier for the third straight year, according to J.D. Power and Associates’ 2007 North America Airline Satisfaction Study. The survey gauges customer satisfaction by looking at performance indicators across several categories, such as cost, in-flight services and boarding/deplaning time. It’s somewhat surprising, considering the winter weather blues that kept more than 10 of JetBlue’s flights grounded. One jet literally froze on the runaway, trapping passengers flying to sunny Cancun, Mexico for more than eight hours.