PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND PROMOTION

Excerpts Only From: What's Your Motivation?

Operators start down the self-branding path for a variety of reasons. For Kehrer, the original main purpose of the 11 branded food court stations was to minimize lunchroom lines and maximize the time students have to eat. At the university of New Hampshire (UNH), in Durham, the purpose of two self-branded concepts was to expand the menu to include chicken and vegetarian items in a minimum of available space, in a short period of time, and with little cash outlay.

In Dallas, Texas, self-branded programs and products have been used by Mary Kimbrough, FSD at Zale Lipshy University Hospital, to establish a local identity in a crowded, competitive healtcare environmenbt as an inventive, trend-setting, healthful, upscale food provider.

It's the Dollars, Dummy

Self-branding has some obvious cost advantages. You aren't paying an outside company to use its name; you aren't buying its marketing materials, product ingredients or training, and, most important, you aren't sharing the revenues generated.

Kehrer says the increased participation from her in-house branding has enabled her to hold the lunch price for high school students at $1.70 for the past five years.

Updated: Thursday, September 6, 2007.