119: Does Foodservice Marketing need a Declaration of Independence?

Well, as we venture into the July Fourth weekend, we're going to grant you independence from being forced to listen to our voices this week!

Instead, we'll just quickly recap the results from our recent survey to gauge interest in the Foodservice 2.0 Conference concept.  The idea is to organize a roll-up-your-sleeves workshop to promote collaboration on ways to better market and sell stuff in this new age of blogs, web video, podcasts and other shiny objects.

Think of the conference as the foodservice version of the Continental Congress... all the mucky mucks gather to form a more perfect union among manufacturers, distributors, brokers, agencies, service providers and rebels (also known as DSRs).  How's that for a transition to tie the conference and the upcoming holiday together?

Click here if you'd still like to offer up an opinion (we're closing the survey Friday, July 9).  We're awarding a free 90-minute DSR Live! onsite presentation to one lucky company as a Grand Prize Drawing.  We normally charge $2,000 for our live events.  Second prize are TWO presentations (just kidding).

Here's what you told us so far about the workshop-conference-let's-get-together-and-do-something-different idea: 

• First, 35 out of our 800-member database of marketing, agency and related folks responded... a whopping 4.7% (actually, not bad considering most web polls are lucky to get a 1% response). But what gives... marketers not willing to take a survey? We figured we'd have 800 responses knowing that marketers always ask us what's so hard about getting DSRs to respond to surveys [Dave's comment]!
• 97% liked the conference idea.
• See graphic at right: Brainstorming on DSR marketing programs was the most popular topic. DSR panels also are a favored idea. Other hot topics: Foodservice social media sites and learning about innovative marketing programs from distributors.
• October is the preferred month... although January, February and March are close behind (no doubt all the snow-bound Chicago and Minneapolis types want to get out of Dodge).
• Hub cities like Chicago or Dallas were preferred... and "warm climates" (depending on the month!).

Stay tuned for more details about the conference.  Click here to download a survey summary.

We'll announce the grand prize winner soon... so, get your entry in if you haven't already done so.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Fourth of July holiday.