Marketing In The News 

I read the article, "Panera Bread Hires Phyllis From 'The Office' To Handle French Onion Soup Fallout", written by Jessica Wohl, because once I saw the reference to one of my favorite TV shows, I knew it had to be interesting. The main point of this article is to share the marketing strategy that the Panera company used to release information about one of their item's being put back on the menu. Panera recently removed one of there most popular soups from the menu in order to make room for some of there seasonal items, but along with this came a large backlash of messages on their social media platform's from their customer's demanding they put the soup back on the menu. Panera realized that they needed to fix this issue so they chose to have a well known actress act in a promotional video for their social media that let everyone know that the soup will be making a comeback.

Panera brand's themselves as being able to bring the best out in everyone. Panera say's "... We believe that good food, food you can feel good about, can bring out the best in all of us... To us, that's good eating and that's why we're here". I would say that statement entails their personal value proposition for their company and his how they brand themselves.

Now you may be thinking, what does an article about soup have to do with marketing. Well, the relevance of this article to the aspect of marketing would be that instead of just releasing a statement that said they were relaunching the soup, they made a short and entertaining skit that not only got the information across, but also made it enjoyable for the viewers. This is a good marketing strategy because it allowed the viewers to feel more connected to the the company and is more likely to make them head over to a Panera and get the soup once it is officially relaunched. This video was also unique and original because they were able to get an actress that many people know, to act as if she was apart of the company and a supporter of the soup. In the video it shows the actress sitting at her desk, and her name plaque on her door says, "loves the Bistro French Onion soup", that was a nice strategic touch to make the soup seem even better. From what I can remember, I have never seen a promotional video quite like this one.

If I was the brand/product manager there is one thing that I would have possibly added to this video. I think to really get the point across they could have had the actress eating the soup during the video. Something along the lines of her being on her lunch break and enjoying a nice bowl of the soup as she reveals that it is going to be relaunched. I feel that if she showed that she personally liked the soup, then it could get more people to go out and try it themselves. However, I think that overall this marketing solution was a good approach to solving the issue at hand. They successfully pin pointed the issue, came up with a well made marketing ad, and delivered it to the target audience.

This article taught me that even large companies such as Panera have to come up with new marketing strategies to keep their customers happy and loyal. I also learned that in the new age of social media there are so many new marketing strategies that can be used and created that are more effective for the current society.

https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/panera-bread-hires-phyllis-office-handle-french-onion-soup-fallout/2225436?CSAuthResp=1%3A%3A5248453%3A0%3A24%3Asuccess%3AC2217FB7CA8D91B6E94315F9679F88F4

https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/home.html