Barry Feig's Hot Button Marketing

Smart Marketing Trick--How One Buyer and One Store Used Intertwining Hot Buttons

For this addition to my blog, I was going to mention the first five Hot Buttons in my book, "Hot Button Marketing" but I received an e-mail about how Hot Button Marketing can help both buyer and seller. The note is used with the person's permission and is printed in its entirety.

"I read your ‘hot button marketing’ book… found it a very good read. I recently had a ‘hot button’ marketing experience of my own recently, that I’d like to share with you.

I was looking for the ‘ideal’ running shoes; something comfortable; something fashionable; and something that served the purpose very well, of running. I had been to all the ‘well-known chains’ for athletic footwear, and never found anything that I felt was a justified purchase. Either the customer service was non-existent, or it was a poor shoe selection; or the sales team the knowledge, for what I was going for.

A week later, I walked into another store, one I’d never been to, called ‘Red Rock Running Company’. Upon entering there, I was greeted by a sales clerk. After exchanging pleasantries she, inquired through various questionnaire, as to what I was looking for, and she had a set of questions that lasted probably4-5 minutes, in hopes of giving me the ideal solution. Upon the completion of the questionnaire, she asked if I minded, jogging for her on an ‘in-house’ treadmill, why she videotaped my feet/running method/the placement, lift, and strike of my foot…etc…

After a minutes run; she let me know that I had ‘pronation’ (a condition where the heel rolls on one side) on my left foot with regard to the heel….etc… and then went on to recommend a specific style of shoe in 3 different brands, that would fit my ‘running style’. I tried all of them, ran with them on the pavement outside the shop, ultimately picking the ideal pair.

‘Hot Buttons’?: Personal and sincere attention to (unique) individual; examination into my specific needs; ‘testing’ methods that raised my awareness, and their selling preference,…. I walked out with an amazing pair of running shoes that I’ve been using everyday! If I hadn’t found the ‘ideal’ shoe, I would have still made a purchase of some sort…. To reciprocate their amazing zeal for customer service!

Thanks for a great book!

Ajay Shah

melodicentertainment.com

Stupid Marketing Trick for the Weekend

Actual Subject Line of of an e-mail I received:

"Save thousands with unnecessary auto repairs."

Yeah, I guess that's much better than paying for repairs you really need.

STUPID MARKETING TRICKS (and some smart ones too).

Please submit your stupid marketing tricks to me for publication.

Okay, we're going to change the direction of this blog. Here I am waiting for my plane which is now delayed for the fifth time.

Perfect time to write a blog.

It is now 10 hours since my flight was supposed to leave. I just got back from giving a speech in China. The entire flight took 11 hours. But this is from Newark to New Mexico. Four hours, but really 10. Anyway, I'm reading the papers. looking for an available outlet for my computer and I realize that marketers do some really stupid things. For instance, the lady across from me has a Cingular phone. Only Cingular used to be AT&T before AT&T became Lucent and changed back to AT&T. So now Cingular is AT&T. Again. Bestill my beating heart, especially since my Dad has no idea who he has a contract with.

And then, of course, Sprint made the front pages by firing its customers. Really... if they complained too much, Sprint sent their noisiest customers notes saying. "we don't want your business" But did they get penalized for breaking the contracts too early,  like us commoners? Of course not. I gave up my first- born to sever my contract with a cellular "provider."  I gave up on Sprint a long ago, when I wanted a new phone. They said, "No you're too good a customer, you don't get one." Oh.

As I have often stated, The emotional appeal is where the money is. Hot button marketing is marketing to an emotional need. Let’s take water. People are going to bars and ordering Evian on the rocks. The rocks of course are made with tapwater. And did you know that Evian spelled backwards is Naïve.  One of the more popular waters is Aquafina. Do you know where it is bottled? At your local reservoir. So is Dasani, from the people who bottle the sugar water known as Coca Cola. Both speak about their amazing filtering processes that leach out bad tasting, (implied) bad for-you-minerals. But Dasani brags that they add minerals to make water taste to taste something like ... well...water.

Haagen Dazs is made in Hoboken, NJ. Do you know why it is called Haagen Dazs. Because it sounds nice. That's a good marketing trick. If they called their ice cream Hoboken's Best, that would be bad.

Just one more marketing trick. We have love affairs with our sports teams. We wear their jerseys and root for transient millionaires who don't give a damn about us. But we spend big money to wear their tee shirts. We don't root for a team as much as we root for a logo.

As Seinfield said...we're cheering laundry.

Please submit your favorite Stupid Marketing Tricks.

Next piece: American Airlines.

Hear Barry in One of His Nationwide Radio Interviews

I thought it would be helpful and sort of fun if you could hear me instead of just reading. Let me know what you think. (Click the triangle on the player below.)

Become a Hot Button Marketer

If you are an advertising agency or marketing consultant, please e-mail me for what you need to be a "Hot Button Marketing Firm" with a "Certified Endorsement." Companies will pay you for your agency pitch. Otherwise, please enjoy this blog.

Use the Nurturing Hot Button to Nurture Sales

The Hot Button of Nurturing

     Have you thought about your product or store as a nurturing environment? If not, than thinking about it may open up a whole new marketing venue for you.   

     It was some time ago when I learned how important the nurturing need is to marketers in even the most common of product categories. I was speaking to a young woman when I developed a new kid's toothpaste for Colgate-Palmolive. Actually we weren't even trying to develop a new kid's toothpaste. We were trying to develop any kind of toothpaste that could make money for Colgate and that their salespeople could sell without a great deal of resistance from retailers or buyers. They were tired of getting beat up by Crest.

     The young woman was a receptionist in our office.  We had literally hundreds of ideas and concepts pinned to the wall, focusing on taste, therapeutic appeal or anything we could add to the product.  She looked at them and said they were cute, but meaningless and insignificant, at least to her.  I asked why.

     The woman said many of her friends were unwed mothers or first-time mothers. They wanted assurance and reassurance that they were providing the best of care for their children. They wanted a toothpaste that spoke to their needs and to their children's needs in a non-condescending way. So while we were exploring the world of tastes and textures, there was an unmet psychological need just waiting to be fulfilled. There was a whole segment of consumers who wanted to feel good knowing they were doing their job well. We extended the concept and found that most mothers had the same concern. Out of this project came Colgate Jr. (originally named First Brush) and a whole line of oral care products positioned to moms - for their children

     Nurturing is about physical growth and emotional growth. Who doesn't smile when the commercial for a child's disposable underpants comes on and the child proudly says, "I did it myself?"   It's easy to relate to.

     A supermarket can be a nurturing environment also. It's stocked with colors and shapes and forms. A magical place for kids.  It's also a space where children learn about the buying experience. Kids have product categories neatly folded in their own area and mom's area -- in the kids minds anyway. Children own the breakfast food category, and in the freezer, the ice cream and frozen novelty category. It's important to know this because by thinking of your store or product in the nurturing sense can lead you to new marketing and advertising opportunities. 

    But nurturing is not just for kids.

     The nurturing response is one of the great pulls in life. Lucky Dog dog food, Band Aids, even Miracle-Gro plant food are sold on the basis of nurturing. Whole industries have sprung up by pushing the nurturing hot button. A big growth sector exists for high-priced dog foods that, for some reason, consumers perceive as better for their pets than massed produced dog foods with funny names.  The ads always point out the caring relationship owners have with their pets.

Myself as hero

      Relationships are a key component of the nurturing hot button. Seeing mom or dad as hero for choosing the product pushes the hot button. In terms of communications and selling, we can't use a deployment of the classic product-as-hero strategy.  Seeing your product as the hero -- just the way most consumer products are promoted -- can actually be a big mistake. The customer is the nurturer or healer for CHOOSING the product -- not your product. Call it the Doctor Syndrome. When one goes to the doctor and gets a penicillin shot, is the penicillin treated as hero? No. It is the doctor who is considered heroic for having the knowledge to prescribe the drug. The successful nurturing approach idealizes the consumer as nurturer or care-giver.  When one goes to a nurturing institute like a preschool, we talk about the teachers, not the books they use. The Colgate product worked because mom found the product that appealed to her needs. It was mom who found a way to get her child to brush his or her teeth willingly.

Some nurturing categories and sells are obvious - some are not

     The obvious products associated with nurturing include those for birthing, childcare, pet care, cooking and even laundry. Yes, washing clothes carries a ton of emotional hot buttons and nurturing cues. That's why laundry makers add scents to their products.  To stretch the market further, we can include plants and garden items, charities and "feel-good" companies. Goodwill Industries is a great example of operating as a "feel-good" company, under the premise of helping poor people. In reality, they are a for-profit business that sells used goods. But they use the nurturing appeal so well, people don't even question that Goodwill Industry's sole purpose is to nurture poor people. 

Use the nurturing approach in your offerings

     Comfort foods like  potatoes and pasta are a great part of the nurturing. Imagine if a manufacturer could come up with a positioning for green beans and  lettuce  that would get  kids to eat more. It's not impossible. Put a cartoony logo on the the product and  add something kids like, for instance pasta. How about adding some fun and nutrition in pot pies.  It's a category bereft of fun.  But it takes more than fun. For mom to be hero the foods must contain some elements of health. Fisher Boy had major problems when they tried to create a kids product. They came up with a cute name and package, but the product was extended with French Fries  -- not on any consumer's healthy 100 list.  Lunchables, of course has done a great job, by attracting kids with their candy, but putting in healthy meats and cheeses. It's important to give mom some kind of visual cue that the product is made for kids. Try cross-marketing your product with the school supply section. Moms know the product is as for kids and you get healthy play in another section of the store.

Girl Scout Cookies  -- a nurturing experience or merchandising tool?

     When you talk about the epitome of marketing under the hot button of nurturing you're talking about Girl Scout cookies. The entire concept is built on the nurturing response. When you buy a box of cookies, you think you're contributing to the emotional growth of a young girl. The Girl Scout cookie drive is a marketing phenomenon. Stores let the girls stand in front of a supermarket and sell, even if it negatively impacts on the stores own cookie sales.  We, and the store's PR department, feel that we are enriching the kids' hearts and minds. The store bathes under the halo of doing a good deed, which does not go unnoticed by the public. Try doing the same thing with fundraising projects for a local school or organization. Create a whole fundraising section -- they are more than enough suppliers out there to keep you well stocked.  It will bring in good will and profits.

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The "Inner" Hot Button Marketer

            There are a great many marketers out there. That's because everyone is a marketer in one form or another. The training starts young.  Very young -- at birth actually when you learn to get attention by crying.  It continues as you "sell yourself' to your teachers, friends and mates.  You've learned what to say and what happens when you say it.  This

is a primary function of marketing.

            To start with, successful marketers have different sense organs than other people in an organization. Marketers listen, keep people excited and generate ideas. Successful marketers have the ability to sniff out an opportunity that could be half a world away.  They do this by being be part of everyone's world -- even when they're not particularly wanted.  They know the pulse of their market and the heartbeat of the company the work for.

Marketing Starts with the Inner Self

            Marketing is a way of thinking -- not about yourself --but about the potential of the product you are marketing.  If successful marketers have one thing in common, it is the ability to become missionaries for their product. They extoll the virtues of a product or strategy to anyone who might be interested.  You're in the enthusiasm business. It's your job to create and generate excitement.  Now, you may say "I'm marketing toilet paper, who is going to be interested in that?" Ask a person who needs toilet paper in a hurry, if he's interested.  Successful marketers know that there is no stronger interest as self interest. Successful marketer think

of their product in terms of their customer's self interest.

            It's winning the inner game that can make a marketer stand out. Sine I've worked with hundreds of marketers, here are the traits of the best ones.

Successful marketers...

            1. Never see themselves as victims.  It's an easy mindset to get into, for we are a nation of blamers. When something doesn't work, we look for someone to blame. A product may not be ideal, the competition is too strong. Your salary is lousy.  These are all temporary conditions. Moses had hundreds of thousands of followers hanging on to his every word. But many people don't know that Moses had a speech defect.  There always will be negatives but smart marketers overcome almost any negative with solid marketing that puts a spin on the product and turns a negative into a

selling point.

            2. Think proactively 100% of the time. They locate problems before they occur, along with potential solutions. There are always going to be problems that you didn't think of when you started a strategy. Smart marketers preempt disasters by finding remedies for potential dysfunctional situations before they occur.

            3. Solve problems. They think in terms of benefits rather than features. Successful marketing propositions don't start with a product, but with the answer to a customer problem.  Smart marketers know what customers want to buy and WHY they're buying them. If they don't know the driving forces, they learn them. That way there are no misdirections and expensive false starts.

            4. Manage chaos and manage in chaos.  Things don't happen in order, even though management types often crave linear time and work flows.  The successful marketer manages chaos -- in the corporate world -- and in buying patterns. He finds sales patterns where none seem to exist on the surface and builds on them.

           5. Think about building relationships as well as sales. Most people can sell a good product once. But it's the relationship that spurs future sales.

           6.  Know that consumers buy on emotion first and physical benefits next. How one sells to the consumer is just

as important as how it is sold.

           7. Borrow ideas from the competition freely and without remorse. Okay, they steal them.  Smart marketers know how the competition will react to a product and the plusses and minuses about competitive products. They become their competitor's best friend and customer until they know almost as much about competitive products as they do.

            8. Listen. Listening is an underrated art form. Customers will give you as much information as you need if your probe correctly. Successful marketers ask  -- and then listen!  The second part is where most people go wrong.  It's physically impossible to talk and listen at the same time and the weak marketer spends more time babbling than listening. Customers will tell you everything you need to know about how to make them buy your product when you ask the right way.

Successful marketers ask questions and shut up.

           9. Constantly evolve their products and their strategic thinking.  They continuously think of ways to make their product better.  They avoid tunnel vision by always looking for peripheral strategies and markets. The ideal product and target market has never been invented. Smart marketers improve their product and look for new target markets -- even

before the product or strategy hits the market.

          10. Fill their head with minutia about anything.  It doesn't have to be related to the task at hand. Mind chatter feeds on those little scraps of information you keeps in your head.  The answer to questions rest in your subconscious waiting to be set free at the proper moment.

                           

The Secret to New Product Success Revealed!

The Five Minute Guide to New Product Success

New product development and brand positioning doesn't have to be a slow tedious process like in most companies. It should be exciting and vibrant as you search for new ways to
develop business opportunities and new strategies to open up the consumer's skeptical heart.

One of the reasons the process takes so long and is fraught with failure is that companies come up with a product they can make and try to sell it to someone. That's backwards.

The best way is to find what people want to buy and thenmake it for them. There are many situations where a company needs to develop new products to keep machinery moving or to rid a company of surplus products. Perhaps you want to develop a flanking brand or enter a new category. These can -- and should be -- consumer driven too.

Whatever the reason for your new product hunt, your job is to create something that people want to buy. Here's how to do it. Quickly and efficiently.

Create a an inventory of hypothetical product ideas and possible product positionings. This is not that hard, even for left brained  people. As a marketer -- especially if you're a new products marketer -- you think of ideas all the time. Your mind is always on overdrive. Just allow your mind to relax and keep a note pad with you. You can even set up a brainstorming session with your people.

The strongest ideas -- a judgment call at first -- should be developed  into actual full color ads. (Don't go to your advertising agency for this -- they never do it right and it's too expensive....you can e-mail me to do it...hint hint.) You now have the backbone of your new product development plan in place. Pretty quick, isn't it?

Take these out to a local mall that has a consumer research facility. Have the staff buttonhole consumers and show them the concepts. Never allow respondents to read the concepts -- a great many people are embarrassed over their reading ability and many won't be able to comprehend the message. Instead, read them aloud as you show your concepts. Watch for your respondent's reactions. I'm not going to denigrate your intelligence by furnishing you with questions to ask. Your naturally marketing savvy should take care of that. The main
purpose of the mall intercepts is to get red flags about your concepts so you can change them accordingly.

Once you've made your changes, take your ads out to interactive groups(focus groups) in whatever market you're selling in. Yes, I know, I often say that focus groups are the most misused research tool in marketing today and I'm not going to take that back. But your goal is going to be different than in most groups. You're not going to ask consumers what they
want. You're going to show them what you can make. You're going to makeyour respondents react to your concepts. Each group should be a microcosm of the shopping experience.

After these groups, lick your wounds and modify your concepts. Throw out the bombs. Modify the ones that received lukewarm interest. Add new concepts based entirely on the reactions from he first group.

Then show them to new groups of consumers in a different area of the country(wherever you hope to sell your product).

Revise the inventory.

Show the revised concepts again. If your concepts were good you'll have awinner.

Guaranteed.

Here's how the whole workflow process for a typical (and almost always successful) new product works. Note that everything can be condensed into a much more concentrated time frame depending on your needs and goals.

FIRST WAVE: BROAD OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT

Initial concept development and ideation. One-on-one interviews, two focus groups. OBJECTIVE: Identify broadscale areas that have potential

Week 1: Start-up meeting, business recap, ideation

Week 2 : Creative review.

Week 3: Advertising concepts completed.

Week 4: CONSUMER REACTION

One-on-one interviews to eliminate red flags and get a preliminary reading of market and assessment of concepts.

After consumer reaction, refine concepts.

CONSUMER REACTION

Week 5: Review findings;

Begin refinement of probes in selected opportunity area; delete and add to inventory. Discuss areas to pursue, areas to stay away from.

SECOND WAVE: CREATIVE AND PRODUCT REEVALUATION

OBJECTIVE: Identify broadscale areas that have potential. Expand on areas that have merit. Further define areas of opportunity.

Week 6: Review of new and revised probes.

Week 7: CONSUMER REACTION

Week 8 : MID-PROJECT REVIEW

Review all concepts that received negative reaction as well as positive reaction. Work with R & D to fulfill successful products/concepts.

Week 9: Modify concepts, add to inventory if needed.

THIRD WAVE: ADDITIONAL CREATIVE MODIFICATION,EVALUATION AND REFINEMENT

OBJECTIVE: Continue evolutionary process, identify hot and cold areas. Zero in on strongest concepts.

WEEK 10: CONSUMER REACTION

Optimization of strongest concepts. Consumers can compare tangible aspects of products, packaging and positioning for concept fulfillment.

FOURTH WAVE (FINAL): CONCEPT VERIFICATION

OBJECTIVE: Verify and optimize all products/positionings, names, products,communications impact and key sensory performance characteristics. Fine tune all work to answer any questions concerning products strengths and positioning. the specific consumer hot buttons and target market. Optimize concepts and purchase triggers. Develop broad scale user profiles and define strength of market.

WEEK 12: CONSUMER REACTION

The results? You're Ready to execute the strategy and product or place the products and concepts into quantitative tests. You now have products, positioning, key product benefits,consumer purchase stimuli needed, target market definition, key communications.

And five minutes is all this article took you to read.

COMING SOON; MY FREE E-BOOK ON NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND BRAND POSITIONINGS. PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT FEIG@BARRYFEIG.COM FOR A COPY.

Share of Heart -- The Key to Hot Button Marketing

How to Achieve Greater Sales

In the years I've been writing columns about strategic marketing and selling, I've seen a great many products come and go. I'm thrilled that many of the products I saw over a decade ago are still out there. But I'm disheartened when a product leaves the marketplace, never to be seen again, or relegated to Joe's Pushcart discount stores.

It happens because marketers are selling through the intellect, while consumers are buying from the heart.

The old fighter Rocky Marciano once said, "hit the heart and the head will follow." It works like that in the grocery business tooWin the hearts of consumers and the mind will follow. I spend a great deal of time watching how people buy things in the supermarket. They'll pick a product up, put it down and compare prices. They get enormously frustrated. Then, they see a product that breaks all of the marketing rules. It stands out -- even at a higher price. The product connects with the consumer the moment she sees it in the case. This product has achieved Share of Heart.

Share of Heart is the emotional connection you make with the consumer at the moment she sees your product. Win the hearts of consumers and the minds will follow.

New product success starts with the consumers heart, not the mind. Of course, your product has to perform. But the supreme challenge is not only to build a better product, but to build a product that speaks to the consumer on a personal, emotional gut level.

Lunchables won a war of the hearts with a product that should fail by most standards. It's overpackaged, contains junk food snacks and oversugared fake juice. But it inspired a whole new category. So why should it succeed in a society that allegedly hates packaging, pollution and empty calories?

Because sending Lunchables with a kid for lunch makes the mom feel happy. She can smile at the package and rationalize the lunch by seeing on the package, "only two grams of fat." She feels like she's being a good mother. A purchased product is a manifestation of how consumers want to feel about themselves. How they want others to see and react to them.

It's up to the marketer to make everything about the product contribute to a positive self-concept.

There is no such thing as a parity product, just as there is no such thing as a low-interest consumer category. These are just products that haven't found their Share of Heart. Even something as mundane as frozen hamburgers can be exciting when we add an emotional cue. Look at the job White Castle hamburgers has done. Once considered just fast food, it has picked up nationwide cult status

When you fulfill an emotional need in a way that no one else has, you have won Share of Heart. And your product is going to leap off the shelf.

 

 

Hot Button Marketing to Kids

Hot Button Marketing To Kids

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald (who said it about the rich), kids aren't like you and me. They're irrational, impulsive, compulsive, and generally feel that the earth spins on an axis that has them in the center. Come to think of it, kids are a lot like you and me.

According to one study, children affect over 60% of the family's market purchase. The trick is to find out which 60% they do impact and in what ways they influence the purchase decision. The nice thing about kids is that they are a self-replenishing market target. I don't mean that negatively, but according to Disney and other licensors of kids' products, the generational cycle is eight years -- from about four to twelve years of age, That means that every eight years, there's a new market for Disney classics. That's why Disney is so picky about release dates and video rights. It's an overwhelming equity.

As Disney knows, kids haven't changed over the years. They're more informed because of the grip of mass media, but the same motivations that grabbed kids years ago still work today. The urge to party, to be popular, to stand out in the crowd and to not stand out in the crowd are all driving forces.

But many researchers, brand managers, and even supermarketers are intimidated by the idea of kids, particularly when it comes to doing hands-on research. They say that kids can't understand concepts. They get bored quickly. They have limited attention spans. They can't make the jump from concept to real-world products.

They're wrong. Kids are only bored if your concepts, products, and moderators are boring. But how can you expect your message or products to break through the clutter on TV or in the supermarket aisle if you can't captivate them in the focus room? We just created a new candy for kids and they almost bounced off the walls in excitement as we refined our product, packaging and our concepts across the country.

Kids will vividly respond to full-color concepts and even rough-drawn storyboards when
you have an idea that either turns them on or turns them off. Kids are not afraid to let you know how they feel about something. The middle ground of concepts -- the "so what" concepts -- are going to be a failure in the marketplace anyway, so you can read children's glazed eyes as a negative.

Surprisingly, kids know when their being insulted and talk down to. I love doing focus groups with kids because they keep me on my toes. They will tell the truth as they feel it and you'd be amazed at how many products they resist because they are very aware of the tricks marketers and advertisers use. Yes, kids can be a very cynical bunch.

We conducted several sets of focus groups with kids for Pepsi-Cola and after we picked popcorn from the windowsills, sponged corn syrup from the walls, and plucked peanuts from the moderator's hair, we left with a winning positioning.

Here are key dos and don'ts to successfully marketing to children:

. Don't show a child in a solitary setting. Kids are social beings and when you show a kid all alone in a commercial, no matter how cute he may look to you, it makes your product (and the user) look like an outcast.

. Do show a kid older than your target audience. Kids look up to older kids. They easily identify with them. To be like the big boys is an essential kid-like feeling. It's anathema to show kids younger than your target group. It makes your product look "babyish" and unsophisticated to your target audience.

. Don't screen out kids who aren't erudite. Too many researchers do that and it makes for terribly misleading groups. Most kids aren't particularly well-spoken, but that's not their problem. Look for kids to react, not to intellectualize. Teens are the hardest groups to get talking.

. Don't talk down to kids. They know it immediately. I see ads written by thirty-five-year-old copywriters using words like awesome and far-out, even when those awesome, far-out slang expressions went out years ago. Unless you're sure of your slang, stay away from it. Like dig?

. Don't forget mom's role as gatekeeper. Children expect mom to make the key purchase decisions on "serious" products. Most kids instinctively know how far they can expect mom to bend. And they respect moms choices, particularly when it comes to "real food".

For instance, while creating a new toothpaste for kids, we developed "frivolous" concepts that kids loved. But they knew good old mom wouldn't buy them, so they turned to a middle-of-the-road compromise they had a chance of getting.

Then we spoke to the kid's moms and showed them the identical concepts. The mothers not only knew what products the kids wanted, they also knew that there was no way in hell they were going to buy it. Both groups settled on the identical compromise choice.

Don't think getting past the gatekeeper is simple. No way. The dynamics change according to what parenting stage the parent is going through, the age of their children.

First Born: "Isn't this whole wheat and almond cereal going to be nutritious?"

Second: "Maybe you can have Fruit Loops, but just this once."

Third: "Eat your damn Breakfast With Barbie and shut up."

. Do Watch cable. That's where the new trends are showcased. From small companies who can't afford network TV to larger companies who appreciate the concentration of kids -- especially on MTV and Nickelodeon -- you can get a handle on what's happening.

. Do play with your food. Kids like icky yucky things and they like to play. Kids also like to feel that they can be grown-up and cook for themselves. That's why microwave kids meals have been so successful.

. Don't use the word gourmet in dealing with teenagers. It's almost always an immediate turn-off up to age eighteen. (It sounds elitist and snobbish.)

.Do be enthusiastic. Do have fun with your product. Lighten up. If you don't think it's fun, then the kids probably won't either.