October 5, 2009
Gourmet, restaurants and PR
Shocking news hit today with the closing of Gourmet magazine. I got the news here: http://tinyurl.com/yd5kt93.
So, while we have all weathered the storms of watching food/restaurant coverage and staffs shrink in the last few years, what does the shuttering of this institution mean for restaurant PR and restaurants wanting PR?
I guess from my perspective, I am hoping it mean that chefs will finally begin to face reality and recognize that the era of the media-driven chef is ov-ah.
Sure, there will be the few that pop out from nowhere and take center stage, à la David Chang. But I would like to postulate that moving foward, these new chef media stars will be few and far between and, in fact, the ones that do rise to consciousness will likely experience the kind of wall-to-wall coverage we saw with David Chang.
Because there simply aren't as many journalists writing for traditional publications as there were just a few years back. And it is obvious to say that there aren't as many publications, either. So the media just doesn't have the kind of time it used to have to go looking for diamonds in the rough ... otherwise known as you.
So, what's a chef to do?
1. Embrace the bloggers as much as you worshipped the publications. Many bloggers blog as a way of making a living as a freelancer, supporting their dining habit, or other reasons that won't result in their closing.
2. Streamline your PR costs. The chances you'll get that big hit you dream about each night are growing slimmer by the day. I don't have data to back up the statement but my gut is you are more likely to hit it big in Vegas.
3. Start thinking about how you are going to reach your customers directly, rather than waiting until you are discovered by the media. You hate it when line cooks sit back and wait to find out what they should be doing next ... and yet, by sitting around and not participating in your own success, that is precisely what you are doing.
Confused. Are blogs not media? Can chefs just stick to what they do best? Putting out great food, without embracing anyone but the eaters? How about bloggers who blog for fun? 99% of them aren't supporting anything with the $100 Adsense/Foodbuzz revenue.And David Chang had huge print support.
We've been out of the era of media-driven-chef and into the era of celebrity-driven-chef for a while now, it seems. The big impact will come from your run on Top Chef, not your write up in Gourmet, which also means that many of the most well-known chef's will be looking to open their first restaurant, not already running successful ones.
SinoSoulDavid Chang DID have huge print support, which was part of my point. That, in fact, there are those few and far between chefs who will break out and get print support...but they are fewer and far betweenier each passing day.Blogs could be considered media, yes, for sure. But my blog is geared to chefs and if you asked most chefs to name "media" I daresay they wouldn't mention blogs. So, I lumped for ease of communication (as I am not a journalist and only expressing my thoughts, I generally assume I can take such liberties...)Can chefs just do what they do best? My answer is pretty much no. There are of course exceptions to every rule, so let's not get all caught up in listing them. I am referring to the vast majority of them here.Chefs do what they do as part of a business. The business exists to make money. For a business to make money, it needs customers. To get customers, a business needs to engage in some marketing. They could, in fact, do what most businesses do: hire an ad team, a PR team, a direct mail team and a social media team. But that costs a lot of money. Most restaurants don't have that kind of money. Most don't have any money.As for fun blogs: its readership, not reason, that you want to look for.Valarie: Agreed, but not everyone can get on Top Chef. Most chefs can't, in fact.What's the difference between a media-driven chef and a celebrity-driven chef?
"Start thinking about how you are going to reach your customers directly, rather than waiting until you are discovered by the media."Hilarious! It's what 99.9% of working cooks (chefs, whatever) already know.