You know, it's kind of weird because you get people arguing from both sides, generally disparagingly about the other position and equally passionate that the have the right answer.
On one side, there are people who say this is all marketing hype with no substance and so you shouldn't buy a superfruit product (http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=71664-cspi-ftc-super-fruits). If you do some digging you will find that most superfruits have at least some science support, and for the most well known like cranberry or pomegranate very solid scientific support of specific health benefits.
On the other side, some try to define something as a superfruit because it has a high antioxidant level or some other type of science support. This position ignores the fact that lots of fruit have high levels of antioxidants, but they are not all superfruits.
My position combines both of these positions - you have to have science, but more than that you have to have very effective marketing and if I had to choose, I would choose marketing over science. Marketing will get you science (by making sales you can fund science) but science by itself will never be enough.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ok, so I started a blog, what now
This seemed like a good idea, start a blog about something you know about and that maybe people will be interested in and see what happens. I am in the final stages of writing the Superfruit book, maybe a blog would be a good place to start a discussion about superfruit.
It's not for everyone, I get that. Not everyone will be interested in superfruit and it's a kind of technical and marketing thing.
So, I've done it and now I'm not quite sure where to go next - any ideas?
One new thing is that there are now six elements of superfruit success (nice alliteration I thought). For a while now, Julian (my co-author) and I have been debating whether novelty was another factor. We even wrote a section explaining why novelty is not an additional factor - then we realised that if we could write a whole section on why not, then it probably was.
So, novelty. We think of it in three ways:
1. The way you probably think about it - it's a new, exotic fruit you have never heard of, probably from some country you never thought of visiting, used for hundreds of years by people who live to 120 - maybe not, but you get the idea. Things like acai, goji and mangosteen (go on Google them), but there are other ways to think about novelty.
2. New format - it's been around for ages but now it is a drink, or a bar, or maybe a capsule. Watermelon juice - hey watermelon, nothing new about that but have you ever drunk it as a juice (except when it's dribbling down your chin)?
3. New market - cranberries have been served on turkey in the US almost since the founding fathers, but virtually unknown in Australia where Ocean Spray is having a good time selling a product that has been on the market in the US since 1959.
So now there are six, and at least it allows my series of 's's
It's not for everyone, I get that. Not everyone will be interested in superfruit and it's a kind of technical and marketing thing.
So, I've done it and now I'm not quite sure where to go next - any ideas?
One new thing is that there are now six elements of superfruit success (nice alliteration I thought). For a while now, Julian (my co-author) and I have been debating whether novelty was another factor. We even wrote a section explaining why novelty is not an additional factor - then we realised that if we could write a whole section on why not, then it probably was.
So, novelty. We think of it in three ways:
1. The way you probably think about it - it's a new, exotic fruit you have never heard of, probably from some country you never thought of visiting, used for hundreds of years by people who live to 120 - maybe not, but you get the idea. Things like acai, goji and mangosteen (go on Google them), but there are other ways to think about novelty.
2. New format - it's been around for ages but now it is a drink, or a bar, or maybe a capsule. Watermelon juice - hey watermelon, nothing new about that but have you ever drunk it as a juice (except when it's dribbling down your chin)?
3. New market - cranberries have been served on turkey in the US almost since the founding fathers, but virtually unknown in Australia where Ocean Spray is having a good time selling a product that has been on the market in the US since 1959.
So now there are six, and at least it allows my series of 's's
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