Cocktail napkins
Often the recorder of lunch-time business plans, cute girls' phone numbers and Warhol-worthy doodles, the cocktail napkins can take on additional duties as a service tool.
Mobile, social and local marketing
First, it was Web sites and email marketing. Now, it’s all about mobile phones, smart coupons that know your location and sites and services that hook straight into local communities. Restaurants aren’t just places to grab some grub anymore. They are active participants in the social conversation with legions of tech-savvy customers.
Start a seafood lover talking about fish and invariably the conversation will alight on some seminal experience in his or her life that started the whole affair. For a close friend of mine who is a marine biologist, it was the Jersey Shore in the early seventies (when the Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden” played often on the radio). For him, Cape May still has a magic all its own.
For the first time, the McCormick Flavor Forecast is taking a global view of trends in 2012. After a year of research conducted by an international group of chefs, sensory scientists, trend watchers and marketing experts, McCormick compiled a list of innovative and creative flavor combinations that are beginning to pop up around the world. Six relevant trends were identified, brought to life through 12 regional flavor combinations.