With so many food brands bragging about their huge food portions and yard sized drinks, Pepper Smash in Plano, Texas definitely over delivers on food quality, without the excessive quantity.

Pepper Smash (www.peppersmash.com) is one of the few “Cocktail Kitchens” found in the US, and they take pride in their one of a kind cocktails and menu creations with recipes developed right in their kitchen.

The Mixologists at Pepper Smash utilize gastronomical methodologies such as liquid nitrogen freezing, and alcohol infusion in fruits and vegetables to create crazy cool cocktails. You may be asking yourself “So what? I can do that too!” Well, that is just the beginning for these “Mad Mixologists.” They also add special ingredients such as smoked tequila, sautéed roasted cherry tomatoes, and caramelized sweet onions to finish off their “Cooked to Order” cocktails. And that’s just a tiny taste of their kitchen genius.

Chad Dawson (www.badchaddawson.com) is boxing’s WBC Light Heavyweight Champion of the World. Boxing is all about strength, endurance, and reflexes. That’s why Chad’s training remains old school and authentic, preserving the strategies that led previous champions to their victory–Yes, this means long hours at the training camp, buckets of sweat, and sore muscles.

Chad’s training demonstrates that change is not mandatory. There’s often great value in tradition and authenticity that makes a brand, or in this case, Chad, successful.

All of us have done it—Wish for a celebrity’s outfit or two…or their entire closet. But let’s face it; the price tags are often bigger than our wallets. Roberto Cavalli, the famous celebrity designer, gave Las Vegas community a chance to, at least, get an up-close look at his extravagant, celebrity-worn gowns.

Some of his famous creations were showcased at Crystals, the shopping and dining center at the City Center in Las Vegas, during Las Vegas Fashion Night Out. The collection included Christina Aguilera’s pink feather dress in 2003 for the MTV Music awards and a black gown worn by Kristen Stewart for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Premier. Don’t you hate what Kristen did to Robert? Well Roberto really did it for everyone in attendance.

We’re only getting older by the second, and it sometimes shows. Stressing over how to take years off our appearance only makes it worse.

Luckily, cosmetic companies are helping consumers actively, aggressively disrupt or delay the inevitable. These cosmetics allow consumers to be pre-emptive in changing the natural condition or series of events.

Products like Organic Root Stimulator and Estee Lauder’s Re-Nutriv give consumers the ability to reduce years off their appearance and cheat Father Time.

We all know Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. We think and are built differently. Different needs, physiology and contrasting shopping behavior. We look for different signs and symbols to make our purchases.

It used to be easy for marketers, just take a successful female brand and make the label BLUE (For men), but that’s not the case anymore. Men need no fail results and brands like Recipe for Men help make that happen with packaging that doses “just the right amount” so the user can be assured of how to use Recipe for Men products for maximum effectiveness.

The proof is in the confidence and outcome.

Say things with an accent and they seem to be more complex, well at least harder to understand if you only speak English.

In the world of Beauty, accents, not only in hair but in marketing, seems to indicate more attention to detail or a linkage to a more efficacious ingredient and increasingly consumers are more interested to know where the item is made. Brazilian style, Moroccan Oil, Italian soul all sounds good but is it better than a good ol’ Made in the USA?

Have your feelings changed about foreign products over the past few years?

Consumers are always looking for a reason to celebrate. Why not give them one?

Celebrate your company’s success by creating a national holiday. This will not only allow consumers to give your product a chance, but it will create endorsement through word of mouth marketing.

This emerging trend is seen with companies and campaigns like:

· 7-Eleven’s Free Slurpee Day every July 7th

· Tropical Smoothie’s Flip Flop Day where you receive a free Jetty Punch Smoothie for wearing your flip flops for a certain day every June

· And more recently, Dress Like Spiderman Day on July 4th sponsored by Carl’s Jr. where you receive a free burger.


What’s your promotional day called and what are you giving away?

Consumers want the reassurance that an item suits their taste before they purchase it. Women specifically are more concerned with how a brand or item is for them. They have to know whether a pair of jeans “makes them look fat” or not. Clothing stores make this easier by providing a fitting room, but what about cosmetics?

Sephora, a beauty-retail company, allows their consumers to do the same by providing a myriad of ways to “try stuff on” Although most department stores already provide free tutorials on make up and sample perfumes for their consumers, Sephora takes this experiential space to another level. Additionally they created tiny handles for items like eyelashes that make it easier for consumers to fully visualize how these items will look on them. 

Sephora knows that consumers are more likely to purchase products that they have personally tried and tested, they also mail three free samples of your choice in every online order.

How does your brand let consumers “try stuff on”?

Financial woes, increased incidence of depression, double dip recession looms, what are our alternatives for happiness when money is short?
CAMPING!

Yes, CAMPING, in marketing terms an idea great for camping was always the idea’s secret death knell. But in economic strife, consumers seem to be flocking back to nature. Younger consumers in general see what a screwed up world their predecessors created and they are simply not interested in the same incentives. They just want to be happy, and that means camping, surfing, kite flying, anything but sitting behind a desk working for the man.

TOPSHOP is a European clothing company that recently expanded their territories in Las Vegas. The brand takes pride in their trendsetter style as they cater to the “fashion obsessed,” as well as the aspiring fashionistas. With hundreds of apparel stores to compete with, TOPSHOP gets a leg-up by offering a personal shopping experience for customers with free fashion consultation by appointment. Another key selling tool is that TOPSHOP makes their aspirational line affordable for students by offering a 10% discount all year round to students with their school ID.