There are obvious differences between TV dinners and “slow food.” For the uninitiated, slow food is a cultural movement developed in opposition to fast food. It stresses local and organic, as well as preservation of food sources and a deep connection between the food’s origin and the person eating it.
TV dinners are highly processed; slow food is natural, organic. TV dinners are prepared and often eaten in a rush; it takes time and care to prepare slow food and is intended to be savored rather than consumed. TV dinners are always frozen; slow food is always fresh. TV dinners generally have a minimum levels of nutritional value; slow food is intended to be chock full stuff that’s good for us.
Today, everyone is always looking for the next big thing, and they think it’s going to be a quick hit. What they’re really looking for is a TV dinner. But what they really want is slow food. They’re looking for something that’s going to satisfy them in the short term, when they really need to have something that willgive them long-term benefits.
Good marketing and PR takes time, energy and effort. It’s not something that you throw together, let it cook for a very little amount of time, stir it once and *bing* it’s done. Effective marketing and PR needs to be built from the ground up, it needs to be seeded and then tended to.
Take Twitter for example. Although the media is abuzz about it right now, it really took Twitter three years to build a critical mass. In the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty short. But they built their following organically, user by user. No big ad budget, no big splashy marketing campaign.
Now compare that to McDonald’s upcoming media bliz for the new McCafe. It’s $100 million. That’s a lot of money for a cup of coffee, even a fancy one.
I’m not saying that a more organic campaign wouldn’t be more effective than a mass blanketing of every channel. But it’s kinda like a TV dinner. It’s prepackaged, it’s barely nutrional (the campaign, not the coffee). In short, it’s entirely contrived. Sure, it’s going to drive a certain level of sales. And sure, McCafe is probably going to be worth billions of dollars for McDonald’s. But it’s not something that will last. It will be a blip on the screen in the life of the company.
The bottom line is that businesses need to look towards organic growth if they want to outlive their competition. Organic growth drives brand loyalty (among many other things) and long-term profitability. And organic growth ensure that a business meets its customers needs with a quality product and service.