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After graduating from my master in Food Marketing at UCC, I came back to my native region and start to think about to innovate the local agricultural landscape and relieve my land from the environmental issue that it faces.
The result is this Proposal for an Integrated Aquaponic and Insect Rearing System
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This project has been one of the most fulfilling and rewarding and gave me the possibility to apply and expand my marketing and research skills based on real data and in a highly professional business environment. The task was:
To examine the opportunities within Sports Nutrition Products, particularly protein bars, for the SuperValu and Centra own-brand ranges
My team had the great chance to present our “Own Brand SNP’s Proposal for the Musgrave Group“, directly to Margaret O’Donoghue (Loyalty Brand Manager) and Maureen Clohessy (Head of SuperValu own brand) at their Headquarters in Cork.
The Musgrave Group is Ireland’s largest grocery distributor, with operations in Ireland and Spain, founded in Cork 1876.
These are the steps and the different parts of work that I and my team carried out:
These efforts culminated in the presentation that you can check below, which was greatly received and evaluated.
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My team and I carried out an ethnographic analysis of the “Food Bloggers’ Tribe”, for the course in “Consumer Behaviour and Relationship Marketing” taught by the late Prof. Brendan Richardson. Our Analysis aimed to investigate the current situation of the food blogging phenomena focusing on:
At the end of o which we also were tasked with the design of an experiential marketing campaign that took into consideration the marketing implication of our findings.
Among the various project that I completed during my master thesis, this was one of the most engrossing, also because it has been one the longest taking most of the year to successfully bring to fruition.
I consider this project as a natural continuation of my bachelor thesis and it gave me great insight on how food blogger evolved as a “modern tribe” and how, more in general, the virtual communities’ configuration changed over time
Based on the type of study we conducted, the methodology we decided to use was the one of:
We focused on analysed various prominent Irish food blogs and food-based social media profiles (FB, IG, twitter). We also had the collaboration of Caroline Hennessy (Bibliocook) and Wayne & Janice (Irish Beer Snob) that kindly accepted to be interviewed.
Blogging falls into what R. Stebbins (Serious Leisure and Work, 2009) describes as serious leisure which is defined as:
the systematic pursuit of a […] core activity that people find so substantial, interesting, and fulfilling that, in the typical case, they launch themselves on a (leisure) career centred on acquiring and expressing a combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience.
In Food Blogging, this characteristic of ‘’serious leisure’’ is prevalent. The presence of a career in food blogging is quite blurred when deciphering between professionals and amateurs. Food Bloggers have been discreetly setting the standards and practices of communication which can be compared to those of professionals. Being a successful Food Blogger is now recognised as a viable job in the food and communication industries.
Food blogging is reborn as a convergent media which is defined by Jenkins (Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide, 2006) as:
The flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted.
The unique convergence occurring in Food Blogging is explained by the fact that while the Food Blogosphere was born in the realm of new media (the Internet), it must (by nature of its realm) rely on the offline food world, as well as traditional media spheres such as print and television. Food Blogs are a complex combination of different media, interest and content which include cookbooks, photography and logging a personal diary.
This was particularly prevalent for our research as we began to recognize the fragmentation of the community and the lack of interaction on the conventional blogging platforms ie the food blog itself. These interactions have not disappeared but they have shifted and reconfigured toward social media platforms. We see it as a second convergence due to the nature and the receptivity of blogging. This is why we decided to include social media and those food bloggers who use social media to enhance our research.
Food Blogging can fall into Cova’s definition (Tribal marketing: The tribalisation of society and its impact on the conduct of marketing, 2002) of a tribe where the aggregating factor is something more than common interests, but non-rational and archaic elements –locality, kinship, emotion, passion. We believe that Food blogging can configure as a tribe.
The first recurring theme we inferred from the data collected was the search for excitement and experiencing appeal through food. Moreover, the visual impact of the virtually shared photography of food. These photographs not only accompany the recipes themselves, but they also represent content itself, still, pictures that have food as the subject, considered as artistic subjects
It beings aesthetic value, paying particular attention to the presentation. The combination of a vivid photograph of the food and an interesting is commonly referred to on social media as “food porn” or #foodporn. This very well explains the underlying seek for excitement and arousal, which can be translated by the famous phrase “food to eat with your eyes”. With the evolution of media technology towards visual experiences, this influences an individual’s perception of what is attractive, exciting, curious, and attention-grabbing.
Consumption is hedonic and not utilitarian – particularly in leisure situations, in which the phenomenon of food blogging lies.
The consumer is looking less for the maximisation of benefits as traditional marketing presumes; they are seeking experiential gratification within a social context The overall experience is what the consumer gets in return for their money and the “festive” or hedonic value is reflected in the potential entertainment and emotional aspects obtained.
Foodies focus on the aesthetic and the sensual appreciation of food as a form of claim to cultural distinction. Thus, Watson et al.’s (2008) analysis of one food blog sees it as part of the blogger’s search for personal significance and identity through “skilled consumption” experiences, shared with a “community of consumption”, other bloggers. They are also exhibiting their skilled consumption. The time and effort expended allow them to move up their Serious Leisure career ladder in the eyes of their community of consumption.
Food blogging can be seen as the “grandmother’s recipe book 2.0”. With this comparison, the values brought from publishing a recipe in a culinary blog post is not the simple physical sequence instruction that leads from raw ingredients to a finished dish, but as a traditional recipe handed down. It is the culture, the interests and passions of the blogger.
For my final dissertation for my BSc in Communication and Management, at the University of Teramo, I Investigated the involvement of Food Bloggers in the marketing and business communication strategies.
To do so in more detail, I analysed, in particular, the communication strategy of the Italian pasta Brand Voiello, that in the years between 2009 and 2013, implemented a multichannel effort to include in their promotional campaign a number of food bloggers, increasing awareness and reputation toward the brand.
In the first part, I focused on blogging as a communication tool, how it evolved since its inception and the benefits of its integration in the business communication strategy. Especially thanks to the low-cost reputational and engaging potential of including external blogger in the company communications and the ability of corporate blogging to fully control the message conveyed and its crucial role in supporting the (much more volatile) social media strategies.
I then concentrated more on the specificity of the “Food Blogging” phenomena and its characteristics, such its connotation as a “serious leisure” and the social and cultural implications. I draw examples from the most notorious Italian food bloggers, along with a large amount of quantitative data on the dimensions and nature of this particular kind of blogging.
Finally, I thoroughly analysed the Voiello communication strategy involving food bloggers. Voiello skilfully engaged with selected food blogger (influencers) and implemented push strategies to stimulate the unsolicited production and the sharing of content, supporting the overall marketing strategy. Furthermore the creation of ad hoc events, such as exclusive dinner and cooking workshops, which allow bloggers to meet and interact, leveraging (and increasing) their sense of community, and also to pull on their specific concerns as bloggers giving them visibility an adding more value to their “serious leisure” activities.
This research has been my first foray into the exciting world of food marketing.
My fascination with food, as a mean of communication and culture, never diminished since then. In fact, it only grew stronger and evolved in my pursuit of expertise in food sustainability and consumer behaviour
I can access the whole document (in Italian) if interested, here:
Dalle Media Relation Tradizionali ai Blog, la Strategia Comunicativa di Voiello
Header video by Francesca Moscheni for Voiello
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