CrowdConnect Advertising | Marketing

05/09/2018

What not to do when the Mayor pays a visit to your restaurant.

Once upon a time in the rolling hills of New Jersey, beyond the oil refineries but reassuringly close to a Wawa, sat an Italian restaurant that looked

10/17/2017

Columbus, Ohio is the third leg on the wobbly display table of retail apparel. Les Wexner and his protégés radiated hit after hit from here in the 80s and 90s, helping to define the way a generation dressed: The Limited, Express, Abercrombie & Fitch. Read about the city’s continuing fight to keep itself and all of physical retail relevant in the age of Amazon.

As retailers face existential threats from the internet, clothing chains and burger joints alike are flocking to Columbus, Ohio, to test new ideas.

09/12/2017

Upon founding CrowdConnect, some of our first accounts were in the hospitality sector: hard-working owners and managers who rarely spent an evening outside of the restaurant kitchen. Still, few would argue that the cooks, hostesses and servers in their charge were more aggrieved and vulnerable still than their oft-anxious bosses. If I needed visual confirmation of that, I could find it behind the scenes of even the most prestigious dining rooms, caterers and hotels. There, it’s easy to find threatening, all-caps signs affixed to every type of surface, imploring employees to report on time, to stay off their phones, to use a maximum of 4 croutons on a salad. So it comes as no surprise that hospitality businesses posted warnings of similar sternness ahead of the recent hurricanes. A Jacksonville, FL Pizza Hut warned employees “If evacuating, you will have a 24-hour period before storm ‘grace period’ to not be scheduled. You cannot evacuate Friday for a Tuesday storm event!” One, the storm did not arrive on Tuesday; it made landfall in Florida on Sunday. Two, the days of hidden harangues staying hidden are over. The private is public and the PR backlash is swift. Imagine the absurdity of hanging these types of signs, echoing these sorts of policies, in white-collar offices. Hourly workers are no less responsible and have no less integrity than those of us who don’t have to punch a time clock. Policies are important, but so is compassion. Think about that before posting doltish signs that reflect Dickensian, dystopian policies - especially regarding evacuations for life-threatening events. After all, the world is watching.

Through hurricanes Harvey and Irma, despite risks, workers prepared food, manned cash registers, and cleaned hotels for the country’s lowest legal pay.

03/30/2017

This article by the Director of Concept for Panera Bread contains incredible, hard-learned truths. If you own a restaurant or any kind of retail business - read it.

Over the years I’ve been lucky and unlucky to work at, own, develop and acquire many restaurant concepts. Some have succeeded, some have failed miserably. I’ve both been a part of a “very lean” startup and have worked at large company with deep pockets. And as I get older, I’m able to understand why...

02/08/2017

All of our clients should watch the improbable film about Joy Mangano, the creator of the Miracle Mop.

http://www.hbo.com/movies/joy/synopsis.html

02/06/2017

Sometimes the best ads don't promote a product at all. They promote a principle.

Progress is in every decision we make, every technology we invent, every vehicle we build. It’s our past, our future, our reason to exist. Audi of America is...

02/05/2017

LOTS of people watch the Super Bowl. But not everybody....

It's all thanks to US population growth.

01/30/2017

From a humanitarian perspective, Starbucks is trying to do something good. From a public relations perspective, it's a nightmare. Remember, folks: pledging to hire vets, like Disney and Comcast, is gold. Perhaps if they couched this in language of "hiring people from disadvantaged populations" it would have gone down a bit better.

"I don't want a terrorist making my coffee."

01/24/2017

Own a restaurant? We'll trade you a 30 minute consult for a lunch. Want to know more? Send us a message and let us know where you'd like to take your business, and what's stopping you from getting there.

01/21/2017

Trump drew far fewer viewers than Obama's first Inauguration in 2009. But it's all about optics: chances are Trump will claim that the numbers are way off because they don't include those who streamed the event from their phones. 🤐

Early numbers have the festivities down 26 percent from comparable figures for the last swearing in.

01/11/2017

Pretty smart, Barack Obama. These images define a president who has just been elected, not one who's leaving. Perception is power, and he knows it.

07/29/2016

Katy Perry isn't in the best voice at Hillary Clinton's convention, but that isn't the point. Compare her material to the country music employed at the Republican Convention. It's all about knowing your audience.