McDonald's McRib . . . It's back!

That's right, it's back . . . McDonald's McRib sandwich returned to restaurants nationwide today.

Historically, it was up to the local franchises to decide if/when they wanted to sell the McRib – except in Germany where interestingly enough it's nearly always available.  However, the last few years McDonald's began running the McRib as a national promotion to great success and has decided to duplicate the event again this year.

Given its cult-like following and the amount of consumer excitement generated every time the McRib is re-released, some people might wonder why McDonald's doesn't just make it available on an everyday basis.

Despite its fanfare, the reality is that the sandwich does not actually sell at a fast enough velocity to justify everyday distribution.  In fact, this year's release date was originally targeted to be October 22, but McDonald's decided to delay the release due to unseasonably warm weather earlier in the fall.  That's right, McRib lovers can blame global warming for the delay.  As it turns out, McDonald's research indicates the McRib sandwich performs best in colder weather and specifically around the holidays, when evidently the appetite for pork is at its highest.

To it's credit, McDonald's has smartly realized it can use the McRib as a limited time only offer to drive traffic.  What began as a small promotion has actually turned into a brilliant marketing strategy where McDonald's effectively creates scarcity to drum up consumer demand and play to consumers' obsession for the sandwich.

And it works!  The proof is in the sandwich as well as in McRib's strong social media following on Facebook, Twitter, and even a consumer created unofficial McRib Locator website, which attempts to identify "possible" sightings of the McRib at McDonald's.

Pizza Hut creates a perfume, seriously!

What began as a marketing joke on Facebook, has now become an international public relations attention grabber, with even Conan O'Brien picking up the story.

It started with a simple set of questions Pizza Hut Canada posted on its Facebook page: “Do you love the smell of a box of Pizza Hut pizza being opened?  We thought so. If that smell was a perfume, what would it be called?”

Following the positive response from it's facebook fans, marketers at Pizza Hut Canada decided to actually launch a limited time only Pizza Hut Perfume, a new fragrance inspired by the smell of a box of pizza being opened. The pizza chain then offered the roughly 100 bottles it produced to many of the facebook fans who initially had responded to the original post.  This of course has generated thousands of additional media impression across North America.

Following the success of the stunt, Pizza Hut Canada's Marketing and product development director, Beverley D'Cruz, explained "for now, we've only produced 110 bottles of Eau de Pizza Hut, but who knows what the future has in store," she said. "The good news is people can enjoy the great smell of fresh Pizza Hut pizza any day of the week by ordering one of our signature crust pizzas."

Well some times grassroots buzz marketing really takes off...and generates a disproportionate amount of consumer impressions for a fraction of the cost of traditional media.  Even if it was a joke, its go consumers thinking and talking of Pizza Hut . . . and I honestly cannot remember the last time that happened.  While a comical execution, the initial post that helped trigger peoples positive associations with the scent of their pizza highlights how important stimulating all of the 5 senses are in delivering both a winning customer experience and great marketing.

Alright, for everybody out there still rolling their eyes about the thought of a Pizza Hut perfume, the amazing thing is this wasn't even the first time a major restaurant chain ran a scent based promotion to drum up their most loyal consumers as Burger King created a meat-scented men's body spray back in 2008. BK's "The Flame” embodied “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

Why Walmart or Kroger could buy Hostess

The latest M&A rumor mill reports that both Walmart and Kroger are among a dozen or so potential bidders for the now bankrupt Hostess brands, which include classic American iconic brands such as Wonder Bread and Twinkie.

On the surface a grocery retailer buying a national packaged food manufacturer seems like an odd fit, because if either tore won the bidding process and ultimately integrated the business they'd most probably either pull the brands' distribution from competitors shelves or eventually get kicked out.  The resulting lose of distribution would almost surely mean that the brand sales would shrink resulting in a smaller business.

However, retailer times are a changing.  With the emergence of Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Costco, Dollar Stores, and even Big Lots into the grocery space, traditional supermarkets like Kroger are facing more pressure than ever, while Walmart (the largest seller of groceries in the US) is also getting squeezed.  This means traditional grocery stores have had to differentiate themselves and give consumers new reasons to visit - developing winning private label businesses has been a major component if these efforts.

While supermarkets have seen success with private label and many retailers have even added multiple different private label brands, up until this point adding in exclusive national brands has not been a major strategy of in the traditional grocery industry.  The only notable exception that comes to mind is Walmart exclusive brand 'White Cloud' toilet paper, which was actually recently named Consumer Reports top toilet paper in the nation.  White Cloud was original created by Procter & Gamble and at one point was a leading 2-ply toilet paper in the U.S., but P&G decided to kill it and invest all their resources behind Charmin.  P&G then made the fatal mistake of allowing their trademark rights on White Cloud to expire and the right were quickly snatched up by Paper Partners, which later agreed to give Walmart exclusive U.S. selling rights.

On the other hand, departments stores have been proving that building a compelling exclusive brand strategy has worked to rebuilding store traffic and driving growth.  For example, Macy's, which has a stable of exclusive brands, reportedly generates over 40 percent of its revenue from private, exclusive and limited-distribution brands (including: Ellen Tracy, Threads & Heirs, mstylelab, Kouture by Kimora and Kenneth Cole REACTION men’s, American Rag, Charter Club, INC International Concepts, Martha Stewart Collection and Hotel Collection). JC Penney has been following a similar strategy by being the exclusive department store retailer for brands such as Liz Claiborne, MNG by Mango and Call it Spring by The Aldo Group.

Thus, it's not surprising that the concept will eventually make it's way into the supermarket space.  Supermarkets executives have become increasingly more savvy in acting like CPG manufacturers and now their private label development capabilities would allow them to easily expand the strong brand names to new products cheaply and efficiently because they could guarantee themselves shelf space and promotion support.  And there is no better platform to start building your exclusive brand portfolio tan on the back of iconic American heritage brands.