Posted by Todd Buckton on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
The best mobile tour becomes an experience. It provides the participant with a rich, sensory brew that helps to cement that particular experience in the mind of the viewer.
Frito Lay took a mobile greenhouse into six large cities this summer with six of the many farmers who grow the potatoes that make Lay's Potato Chips.
By doing an excellent job of providing a local and human element to what could be considered a homogenous global product, Frito Lay used the farmers to place a face on the production of their product. That, coupled with the mobile environment full of live plants and black, loamy soil gave this tour everything it needed to be a successful experiential tour.
Here at Road Blog, we know how important experiences are for our clients. Well-designed traveling brand experiences are the "secret sauce" that make mobile tours so successful and allows us to provide our clients with rapid, positive ROI.
Frito Lay asked their audiences to leave the world they know for a short time and become immersed in another environment. One where the men and women tend to the fields and nurture the food that we eat on a daily basis. That immersion quickly invaded the senses of the participant and created a positive experience that the company was intending.
How would you portray your brand if you could put it on a tour and take it across the country?
Posted by Todd Buckton on Mon, Aug 23, 2010
Today's View from the Cab highlights what some of the PMG mobile tour drivers have been doing on their summer vacations. After helping our clients Drive Their Brand Experience in the best ways possible, these guys need to get the batteries recharged.
First we hear from Driver Tom who's checking in from the Kentucky State Fair. The State Fair is a wonderful tradition in the USA, featuring the best each state has to offer in agriculture, commerce, livestock, entertainment and...fried food. Here at RoadBlog we've been to many State Fairs and we've eaten everything from deep fried cauliflower to deep fried Twinkies. But the Kentucky State Fair has something we've never, ever seen: Donut Burgers.
That's right. A fresh - never frozen - juicy burger, fresh off the grill with all the trimmings, and instead of a bun? Oh yeah, slap that puppy between two donuts. In any other venue a donut burger would be looked upon with shock, wonder, perhaps even disgust. At a State Fair? It's downright brilliant. Thanks to Driver Tom for sharing this bit of Americana, even though we never heard if he actually tried a donut burger.
Our next stop on the PMG Drivers summer vacation tour takes us to Tennessee, where driver Dave has just landed a lunker catfish and sent us a photo. He wouldn't tell us where the fishing hole is, just that it's in Tennessee. He also wouldn't tell us what he caught it on, so the catfish in Tennessee are probably safe from many of us...but not from Dave.
What did you do this summer to get away from it all?
Posted by Todd Buckton on Mon, Nov 23, 2009
Here at RoadBlog we think the best thing about traveling on the road is finding little out of the way places with incredible food. You can learn so much about a place by eating where the locals eat. A bowl of chili is completely different in Oregon than it is in Cincinnati. For that matter so is a grilled cheese. National chain restaurants are fine if everything else is closed. But you're shortchanging yourself if you don't see what America has to offer in local food. With that in mind, here's the top 5 places RoadBlog looks for guidance before (and while) hitting the road:
1. Roadfood is the online extension of Jane and Michael Stern's remarkable run as print columnists primarily for the now-defunct Gourmet magazine. The food stays true to the region and typically is diner-style, hamburgers, hot dogs and breakfast joints. The reviews are inspired, fair and almost always spot on.
2. Chowhound was a nice, homegrown national food web guide of all types of cuisines, from fast and simple to fancy to incredible. They also specialized in local ingredients or packaged foods. So if you've never been to Philadelphia, Chowhound would give you the best place to get a Philly steak, or Sushi or what the locals eat for packaged lunchtime treats (the astounding, sublime Tastykake). It was a nice little website with a clunky interface. In 2006 they were bought by CNET and got all fancified. The interface got better and the ads have managed to keep out of the way of the content. Still a great site and a great source of info.
3. Ask a local. Follow your nose. Get into town and ask somebody at the gas station. Or stop into the hardware store and see what everybody does for lunch. You'll probably meet a character who will tell you a story or two and then turn you on to something incredible. RoadBlog has found lots of great food this way, but it's not foolproof. A particularly foul fish taco in Oceanside, CA recommended by a guy who looked like Gabby Hayes made us realize we should have stuck with Rubio's. Locals are also a great way to find great food on the web:
4. Local city websites with incredible content are springing up all over the country. For example, if you ever find yourself in the Chicagoland area, just check out LTH Forum. This outstanding site was started by a bunch of local foodies who were at a restaurant in Chinatown called Three Happiness. Great dim sum, open late, no pretensions, just good food. It has 8 tables, hence the "little", and Little Three Happiness Forum was born. But LTH Forum is not just Chinese. The LTH Forum foodies have turned over every culinary stone in the city to find the best gyros, tacos, pizza, late night Mexican, Ethiopian, you name it. It's a great compendium of food in a city with an eye-popping array of amazing foods.
5. Check out the local newspaper websites. RoadBlog keeps track of lots of news pertaining to healthcare, aviation, experiential and mobile event marketing on Google Reader. But nestled in amongst the news of the business is the news of the food. Just for good reading subscribe to the food blog of the Houston Press called "Eating Our Words". Houston, TX has a huge food vocabulary and the writers for this paper have their fingers firmly on the pulse of it. Streetside BBQ, Indian, recipes for pecan pie when the pecans are in season, you eat it and they cover it. I can't wait to get back to Houston. I know right where I'll go for Vietnamese.
So there you have it. Wherever you go on the road there's somebody ready to help you find that indigenous treat that's worth going out of the way for. Bon Appetit from RoadBlog.