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What’s In a Name?
by Susan Craig
Celebrity products are nothing new. High profile celeb names are on everything from perfume to clothing to motor oil to shoes. It was only a matter of time before they’d discover food, especially the hot stuff. Salsas and hot sauces are now marketed under the names of comics and movie stars (sometimes one and the same) and sports stars. While celebrity marketing can be a gimmick for a quick buck, the folks whose pictures are on many hot food products are taking the whole business quite seriously. They know what they like, their personal taste stamps the product, and they’re out there telling everybody about it. Perhaps your favorite superstar will be next.
How does this happen? Do these people hide out in their kitchens, stirring up the old family recipes? Do food producers look around for a celebrity to match up with their product? Or is it the marketers who create these matches made in heaven?
The answers: yes, yes, and yes.
Hollywood Appeal
Take Paul Newman, for example, and his Newman’s Own All-Natural Bandito Salsa. Here’s one of the highest-profile celebrities of modern time who does, in fact, whip up recipes in the kitchen. Recipes for the extensive line of Newman’s Own products come from either Newman himself, his family or from someone within the company.
Newman’s Own Salsa has been on the market for six years and comes in six versions: mild, medium and hot, and peach, pineapple and garlic. Bill Lee, vice president of Newman’s Own, says the interesting flavors in the latter three come from the contrast of the hot and the sweet. Paul Newman’s favorite? "The hot salsa," says Lee. Newman’s Own also markets All-Natural Diavolo Sauce for pasta, a very hot sauce to use with chicken or fish.
The northeast part of the country is where Newman’s Own salsas sell the most, according to Lee, because people there don’t make their own salsa. However, all products are marketed nationally. In marketing talk, their purchasers are college-educated, higher-income families with two or more children. Lee says that at this time Newman’s Own has no plans to expand their hot foods line.
A celebrity who doesn’t mix up his own hot sauces but who throws himself into the joy of tasting and eating them is Cheech Marin, a powerhouse entertainer whose credits include acting, directing, writing, music and art collecting. Some of us will recall his hilarious run as part of the duo Cheech and Chong, others as a star of the CBS show "Nash Bridges," and anybody who goes to movies has seen him in heaps of high-powered films. He provides voice-overs in blockbuster children’s animated films and has recorded bilingual children’s albums. The list goes on and on, and the question that comes to mind is: Why hot food? Don’t you have enough on your plate?
"Well," says the Cheech, "they asked me." The "they" consists of his artist friend Alan Aldridge, and the hot food manufacturer and marketer Figueroa Brothers, Inc. But they asked the right person, as Marin is really into food. "I cooked for hotels and restaurants during my youth," he says. "I cook every day when I’m home. I love it! From my Mexican heritage I know a lot about chiles, and I wanted habanero, wanted it (my product) to have a whang." Taking into account some of his requests, Figueroa Brothers experimented with sauces and sent bottles of them to Marin to taste.
"I’d gather a bunch of friends and we’d go to a restaurant or my house to taste. You can weed out some right away, and after that it comes down to what your taste is as well as making some allowances for the taste of the general public. Through that process we came up with the intensity and flavors that I like. My favorite is the Mojo Mango." Typically people associate hot sauces with Mexican food, says Marin, but hot sauces cross over into many cuisines. He likes the mango sauce with shrimp and chicken and with Asian ingredients like beef with noodles, bean sprouts, mint and cilantro.
There are three The Cheech® hot sauces: Gnarly Garlic (habaneros, carrots, onions, "mucho garlic and a splash of lime juice"), Smokin’ Chipotle (jalapeños, cayenne, tabasco and habanero together with molasses, sugar cane vinegar, and a little rum), and Mojo Mango (mangoes and habaneros). Figueroa Brothers president David O. Figueroa feels that Marin the gourmand has provided the company with the opportunity "to do its best work." The products have been available only on the Internet at www.thecheech.com, but following food show exposure in California this January, Marin hopes to see his products "everywhere." Targeted retail markets nationally are specialty gourmet stores, Latin American and Mexican stores and grocery stores. A hot marketing campaign employs unforgettable T-shirts, posters and counter displays.
"I hope that everyone has a lot of fun with these products," Marin says. "They taste good and are good for your health. Later on we’ll probably do more foods. We’re trying to take our time and make sure that these are real quality products."
Another route to product development was pursued by Redneck Foods, Inc., and had to do with the birth of a restaurant. David Womick, CEO, was approached by comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s agent about starting a restaurant with Foxworthy’s name on it. "I thought it was one of the greatest ideas I ever heard," he says. "Everyone readily identifies with Jeff." Thus was Jeff Foxworthy’s Backyard Bar-B-Q born, and with it the generation of five barbecue sauces including Redneck Hot and Extreme Hot.
Prize-winning Redneck Hot is a spicy version of the original molasses-based barbecue sauce. Also in the line are Tangy Mustard and Carolina Bourbon. Extreme Hot, says Womick, "came from knowing that we needed a very hot sauce in our restaurants. It’s papaya with habanero, great with catfish, pork or chicken." Womick notes that, hot though this sauce is, "it enhances food rather than masking it." He points out that barbecue is a very regional taste, so their line of sauces lets people either have what they want or try something new.
And yes, Jeff Foxworthy has his hand deeply in the pot. Sauces are developed from his own recipes, for starters; and he has been on the promotion trail including national talk shows. "He’s committed to be out there," says Womick.
This is only the beginning for Foxworthy, the largest-selling comedy recording artist in history, TV star, and writer of nine best-selling books. Jeff Foxworthy’s Backyard Bar-B-Q and its full-service partner Jeff Foxworthy’s Smokehouse Grill are "going to grow explosively" in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, according to Redneck Foods marketing director Dave Bonyun ("The Marketing Guy"). The sauces will also be available in supermarkets within the next two to three years and, who knows? There might be more hot sauces on the way.
Sporting Salesman
A different kind of showman is also popular on the hot foods circuit: the athlete. Celebrity athletes are popping up all over the place on the labels of salsas, hot sauces and other taste-tingling foods. Omar Vizquel, Cleveland Indians shortstop, is one of the most visible. His connection to salsa, however, came about because of his painting.
"About a year and a half ago," says Bob Barlow of ProPress Productions, "we noticed that Omar was a fine painter and we had the idea of using his art for a product label. This evolved into the salsa idea." They started with mild and medium salsa, developed from salsas Vizquel tasted and liked, and then featuring the paintings inspired by his native Venezuela on the labels. By the end of the first season 100,000 jars had been sold and they continue to be hot sellers. They’re marketed primarily to the region where Tribe fans reside, through the grocery chains Giant Eagle and Finast.
"Currently we’re working on a hot salsa profile," Barlow continues, "along with three new paintings. Just before baseball season begins we’ll put the new paintings on the labels. We promote through radio, TV and so on, but the product takes on a life of its own. It’s pretty much baseball-driven as well as price-and product-driven."
From the promotional figures, it seems clear that Cleveland Indians fans are crazy about this salsa, made with tomatoes, green chile, jalapeño peppers, onions and spices. Is it just the salsa? "It’s that people want to get a little closer to them (their idols)," Barlow says. "For $1.99 they can get the product with Omar’s picture and his painting."
ProPress Productions, a group of long-time Indians fans, is looking at developing other products, perhaps tortilla chips next. They’re also talking to several hockey players and some National Basketball Association (NBA) companies.
PLB Sports in Pittsburgh has gone all out in the marketing of celeb athlete food products. The company currently represents ten athletes and thirteen products, about half of which are guaranteed to give some snap to the taste buds. The company began about six years ago with the launching of athlete-named candy bars and peanut butter. "Athletes lend a certain uniqueness to the marketing," says Ty Ballou of PLB Sports, "creating a niche away from the core brands. People like the athlete and buy the product. When the season is over, fans that like these individuals don’t stop liking the products."
Products from PLB include Kasparaitis Krunchers, spicy dill pickles in spice and red pepper brine (Darius Kasparaitis, Pittsburgh Penguins, National Hockey League), and Deadmarsh Deli Dills, half-cut dill pickles (Adam Deadmarsh, Colorado Avalanche, National Hockey League). Because Denver turned out to be such a good market for the Deli Dills, PLB added Ed McCaffrey’s Rocky Mountain Mustards. According to a press release from PLB, McCaffrey, when asked what product he might be interested in, replied that he liked mustard and put it on everything. "The rest," states the release, "is condiment history." McCaffrey (Denver Broncos, National Football League) didn’t mix up the mustards himself but sampled all the prospects and chose the ones he liked: creamy Dijon and spicy brown. Recently added is a horseradish mustard. "The products are taking off; his season is phenomenal," Ballou says.
Other hot stuff can be found in the "The Bus" Jerome Bettis (Pittsburgh Steelers, National Football League) salsa, barbecue sauce and mustard lines; and the garlic and herb marinara sauces of Cy Young winner Tom Glavin (Atlanta Braves, National League baseball).
Ballou is pleased that the company has been fortunate in getting "terrific guys," who get involved with their products by giving feedback on the label graphics, making store appearances and engaging in other marketing, and making key account sales calls. They’ve just signed a contract with legendary pitcher Nolan Ryan and are on the verge of signing three or four others. Ryan, though retired, maintains a presence; his steak sauce product matches his profession of cattle ranching and the Texas market is a new one for PLB. In general, athlete products are developed and marketed to non-overlapping areas centered on the athlete’s location.
"We try to look for someone unique, someone with a story," Ballou says. "We do get calls from athlete agents but we look for the story. Omar Vizquel’s painting, for example (Vizquel is marketed by PLB and ProPress); Doug Flutie’s (Buffalo Bills, National Football League) interest in raising money for autism as he has an autistic son; Tom Glavin’s support of child abuse shelters in Atlanta."
In fact, community involvement and charity support are serious endeavors for celebrities who market foods. Since 1982, Newman's Own has donated over $90 million (the entirety of their after-tax profits) to charitable causes throughout the United States and abroad, such as the Hole In the Wall Gang Camp for children with cancer and other blood-related illnesses. Jeff Foxworthy serves as honorary chairman of the Duke Children’s Classic Golf Tournament which raised a million dollars this year for Duke University Children’s Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. Charities like El Rescate and the Inner City Arts Council in the Los Angeles area benefit from the work of Cheech Marin. So while your taste buds are reveling in those great hot ‘n’ spicy foods, think about the good guys behind them.
Sidebars:
Starring Roles
While the companies mentioned in this story do not accept product submissions for celebrity marketing ventures, manufacturers might want to think about pitching their own well thought-out product ideas to local celebrities. After all, ProPress is actually a small operation of Cleveland fans who market only Omar Vizquel’s salsa, in conjunction with PLB Sports.
PLB Sports wants their products to be personalized, so they specially develop all of their recipes and labeling in conjunction with selected athletes.
Famous Becoming Popular
Famous Fixins Inc., a New York-based manufacturer and distributor of celebrity food products--including Olympia Dukakis Greek Dressings, and Erik Estrada’s Gourmet Chips--has entered into an agreement with Crown Prince to increase current product distribution from 3,000 supermarkets to an estimated 30,000 supermarkets and convenience stores nationwide. Crown Prince, a canned seafood importer, has been in business since 1948, has an extensive network of national food brokers, and "has the potential," said Famous Fixins President Jason Bauer, "to make Famous Fixins and its products a household name." Contact: (212) 245-7773.
Sources:
Bill Lee, Vice President
246 Post Road East
Westport, CN 06880
PH: (203) 222-0136; FAX: (203) 227-5630
No emailTy Ballou
835 Western Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
PH: (412) 322-9409; FAX: (412) 322-9019
No emailBob Barlow
Prefers no mail, please call or fax
PH: (216) 651-1588; FAX: (216) 651-2277
Email: propress@aol.comDave Bonyun, Marketing Director; Dave Womick, CEO
PH: (828) 277-5577; FAX: (828) 277-0504
Contact: Figueroa Brothers, Inc, David O. Figueroa Jr.
239 N. Causeway Blvd.
Metarie, LA 70001
PH: (800) 886-6354; FAX: (504) 831-8955
Email: davefig@hotconcepts.com