BOH/FOH 7: Being Novel

The importance of novelty in communications for restaurants (among other things). 

https://www.thatsoundtheticketprintermakesthathauntsyou.com/about-5

Thrillist How Trader Joe's Wine Became Cheaper Than Bottled Water

https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/trader-joes-wine-two-buck-chuck-history

Guerrilla marketing gone wrong (Visual Edition)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn4p213Zg8

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Okay, I'm gonna need your help here. I do regular brainstorms on various subjects, which eventually become short writings, which are intended to whittle down the subject into a salent, coherent theme. Sometimes, though, the writing goes in the other direction, a can of worms kind of situation. Uh, this is one of those times.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

You listen to BoFo and History Podcast. Now it's a podcast for folks in the hospitality industry on both sides of the past, featuring stories, both inspiring and occasionally disappointing. The interviews are anonymous, as are the establishments, the intention behind the recordings to celebrate those working in the trenches, to listen in on some interesting human behavior in the restaurant, which there's plenty of, and celebrate what makes the industry exciting and sometimes a little bit terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

OFO 7, novelty, and its importance in restaurant communications. As the title suggests, the concept that started this line of conjecture began simple enough exploring the importance of novelty in communication, especially its use in social media marketing for restaurants. Now this podcast goes in some weird direction, so apologies in advance. I'll be apologizing multiple times. When these musings of mine get over long, I put it here on tape so it doesn't become one of those TLDR type situations. So here we are. Introduction. Oh, I don't think I was supposed to read. Some are adept communicators, some aren't. But for the most part, they are all tenacious. Meaning, whether adept or inept, their outfacing communications will be available for the world to hear, see, and or feel. One of the more difficult processes in this job is getting people away from the idea that there's some sort of secret sauce or framework for getting engagement. For this exercise, engagement is the end game. Seeing and reading a bench ad is not the same as engaging with it. To measure success in this sphere, we need to know that the audience is taking some sort of action in regard to the messaging. Now, if you take into account the pace of social media and how dynamic the restaurant industry is, fitting in social media into operations isn't easy, ending up with most of the things that we see being derivative, you know, copycats, copying copycats. The true currency in engaging the public is that of being novel. On July 1st, 2026, a couple of urban climbers scaled the Empire State Building and hung a flag that read, When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. With one of the climbers proposing marriage to the other before both getting arrested when they reached the ground. The stunt no doubt took planning both logistical and physical, and could no doubt be done by only a handful of people. It was novel. Within minutes of the photos being posted on social media, the creators or the medium bottom feeders went to work overlaying corporate logos and other writings over the original text. Now those slower on the draw posted on Facebook the next day, no doubt after searching how replace writing on black flag. Social media is a dangerous place for novelty. It's where novelty goes to die. It's not when, it's if. Now, some of these memes had meteoric runs. Things like finger mustache tattoos or that original talking dog. Bacon that's like maple?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

A maple flavor. The maple kind, yeah? Yeah, so yeah. I took that out, and I thought, yeah, I know who would like that. Me. So I ate it.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Nowadays, all the dogs talk. And those tattoos are well worn and look like Sharpie accidents. As I see it, restaurants fall into one of three camps. Now, there's the big spenders. You know, these are the white whales these days, big budgets and time to execute whatever their vision may be. You know, back in the good old days, pre-Instagram, there were these people, and it was a profession. They called them food stylists. In those days, I'd get a gig shooting for a publication and be assigned a stylist to help me out. They typically mill around trying their damnedest at being OCD. They demanded high rates, sometimes making more than the photographers themselves. Then and believe this. They used to take those photos, print them on paper, which they would then bind together to make these things called magazines. Those are wild times. The big spenders rarely have much creative input, and they don't really want it anyway. They tend to prefer commercial style shoots, photographing environments and food in the best light possible, both literally and figuratively. Turnaround on the content takes weeks, if not months, so they look for longer-term sorts of appeal. They don't change their menus too often. That sort of thing. Next up, the do-it-yourselfers. Social media is deceptive. It seems like it's quick and easy to do. It simply isn't. Operators who saddle themselves running their accounts are like adding hats to a pile of hats. Or maybe a saddle to the hats, I'm not sure. Anyway, they're easy to spot, frantic with a phone in hand, looking for something to post. It's hard not to be in the way of operations, even in your own place. Next up is the savants. Now, being novel isn't something you can train someone. It comes naturally to some, not most. I like using Pizza Supreme Being Instagram account as an example of this. Ben, the owner operator, produces homespun narratives that are both novel and sincere. He did a multi-piece documentary about a parking cone in front of his spot. He was riveting. Then there's like the Zen Masters, the ones that have heard of social media but saw no need in it for their operations. It's funny, but doing zero media is better sometimes than doing crappy media, and it's also free. Now, this is the point of the brainstorm where it falls off the rails into a rabbit hole with a can of worms. When we think about communication in regard to a restaurant environment, we tend to think of in-house and out-facing communications, whether verbal, written, or visual. Then I thought of the minutiae, things like how the phone is answered, how you're greeted when walking in, the size of the font on the menu, the playlist, the art on the walls, etc., which got me to think about how communication is how you're perceived as a customer, operator, a citizen, a lover, or a human being. In some way, we are all always communicating. Well, maybe not all of us. So I was thinking, what's the worst that could happen? Taking bad communication or lack thereof to the extreme brings us to tapophobia. Now it's an abnormal fear of being buried alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. Many people have the fear of being able to communicate. Could be things like solitary confinement, being in a coma, that petty criminal tied to a bed for a year in the film seven, or literally being buried alive, which has happened and happened twice to one guy. You can look it up. The phobia created a need for an invention of safety coffins, which would employ various methods for those entombed to communicate with the outside world. This was prior to refrigeration, so you couldn't very well leave coffins on the street for a few days to see if the person is still alive. The coffins often had bells above ground that could be triggered by the buried occupant. Initially, the end of the string attached to the bell was attached to the body of the occupant. Apparently, the inventor didn't consider movement caused by decomposition, so there were some hurried exhumations with some unfortunate consequences. Taphophobia wasn't limited to the uneducated or anything like that. George Washington was asked that his body be left out for three days after he passed away, where other notable minds like Edgar Allan Poe asked that their arteries be slit prior to being buried. You may be asking, how did we get here? Honestly, I have no earthly idea. You were warned though. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you soon. And Guido, I want to know your notes on this and see if it's too wacky, if it needs to be more linear, um, if you like the sound bits or not. Uh thank you.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I need help. I'm in terrible trouble and I need help. Don't you remember when you were little?