Mollie Stone's Markets' Year of Passionate Improvement Continues With Launch of New Website Tomorrow; But There's Also More In-Store

Northern California Market Region

Mollie Stone's Markets' uses the slogan "The Best of Both Worlds" to describe its retail format and approach to food and grocery retailing, which is to offer basic necessities - what it calls necessity shopping - along with specialty, natural, organic and gourmet foods - passion shopping - under the same roof.

But the theme or slogan also aptly describes 2011 for the privately-held, nine-store San Francisco Bay Area grocer, in that so far this year Mollie Stone's has been passionately focusing on the necessity of continuous improvement in what today have become the two worlds of food retailing - a grocer's stores and its use of cyberspace and social media to communicate with shoppers.

Mollie Stone's Markets' year of passionate improvement takes another step tomorrow when the Mill Valley (Marin County), California-based food retailer launches its brand new website, which according to co-owner Dave Bennett will not only look good but will also be filled with added features, along with being a work of continuous improvement in and of itself.

The website is at: http://www.molliestones.com/. If the new website isn't working right away on Friday it's probably because it's being tweaked by the designers.

The launching of the new website tomorrow comes on the heels of Mollie Stone's hiring of its first social media manager, which we reported exclusively on in this July 14, 2011 story: Mollie Stone's Markets' Takes Next Step in its Social Media Journey By Hiring First In-House Manager.

As we noted in the story, Mollie Stone's Markets' has been growing its use of social media significantly. As part of that growth the new website will over time integrate the grocer's social media sites with features on the website, according to Elizabeth Milks, the retailer's social media project manager.

Speaking of integration, Mollie Stone's isn't letting its passion for cyberspace and social media take its focus off the nuts and bolts of food retailing - its stores.

In fact the opposite is true. Since January of this year the retailer has been waist-deep in various store remodeling projects as well as acquiring its ninth store in late January in San Francisco's Castro District and opening it less than two months later, on March 9.

Along with opening the new store in San Francisco's Castro District, which is Mollie Stone's third store in the city, the grocer has remodeled the produce, bakery and deli departments in its Burlingame, California supermarket, a project it started in January and completed in April. (You can see a photo here.)

Additionally, Mollie Stone's has just completed the remodeling of the produce department (pictured above) in its Sausalito, California store, along with doing major resets of the in-store bakery and cheese shop.

As part of the produce department remodeling project, the store's manager and the Mollie Stone's team heading it up decided to extend the fresh fruit and vegetable-filled department outside, adding the merchandising feature pictured below in front of the store.

The concept fits the outside of the store well because Sausalito, which is just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, is a European-style village community located on the water and its residents are very healthy food and foodie-oriented. The fresh produce outside therefore makes a very locally relevant message, as well as lending itself to impulse purchases and thus added sales for the store, which is exactly what happened last week as the fresh fruits featured in the tropical-themed display below were selling briskly.

Next up for Mollie Stone's Markets, which is co-owned by Mike Stone and Dave Bennett who founded the chain together in 1985, is a remodeling of the deli-prepared foods department in its Greenbrae (Marin County) supermarket. The store's produce department was remodeled in December 2010.

Stone and Bennett have also channeled some of their passion for the grocery business and specialty foods into a new brand of products called "Mike & Dave's." The first product under the eponymous brand, Mike & Dave's Wing Sauce, was launched in May of this year (see our stories linked at the end of this piece). Additional "Mike & Dave's" products are in development, Bennett tells Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Back in cyberspace, Mollie Stone's has launched a new "Secret Sales" promotion on its Facebook site. The promotion works this way: Each Tuesday the grocer posts a deal item along with a promotional code which allows shoppers to get the product at the special Facebook-only price. Customers note the promotional code number and give it to the checker at a Mollie Stone's store in order to get the "secret sale" item at the special price.

The promotion, although brand new has, based on our observation and research, been driving shoppers to the Facebook site and in-turn is driving users of the site into the stores for the deals, depending of course on the specific product and how good the deal is.

Social media project manager Milks' tells us it's the first of what will be many social media site-based promotions Mollie Stone's Markets will be doing in the coming months.

In addition to Facebook, Mollie Stone's has a very active Twitter feed, and also uses the location-based site Foursquare. It also has a YouTube channel where it posts videos.

The launching of the brand new website on Friday will tie-in Mollie Stone's Market's eight month year of passionate improvement - and neither are over yet - in a solid way in our analysis because it will be a bigger and better central place online where the grocer can showcase all it's been doing to improve its stores (and open a new one), along with its growing social media efforts, allowing it to better communicate to shoppers its focus on both the necessities and passions of food and grocery retailing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mollie Stone's Year of Passionate Improvement: Follow the Story Below

July 14, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets' Takes Next Step in its Social Media Journey By Hiring First In-House Manager

June 23, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets' Owners' Eponymous Mike & Dave's Wing Sauce Grows Display Wings

May 16, 2011: 'Wing Man-to-Wing Man' - Mollie Stone's Markets' 'Mike & Dave' Create, Set to Launch 'Personal Brand' Wing Sauce

March 7, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Superior Grocers, Mollie Stone's All Opening New Stores in California Wednesday

March 1, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Will Open its New Store in San Francisco's Castro District On March 9

February 17, 2011: Mollie Stones Markets Planning to Open Newest Store in San Francisco First Week in March

January 28, 2011 Mollie Stone's Markets Confirms Our January 13 Report; Announces New San Francisco Store Via Twitter & Facebook

January 13, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Taking Over Closed 18th Street Delano's IGA Market in San Francisco's Castro District

November 30, 2010: DeLano's IGA Markets Closing Five Stores in San Francisco & Marin County; Fairfax, Davis Units to Remain Open (For Now)

November 29, 2010: Veteran Grocer Harley DeLano's 'DeLano's IGA Markets' Chain On the Verge of Closure in San Francisco Bay Area

Also see Northern California Special Report for related stories.

Mollie Stone's Markets Takes Next Step in its Social Media Journey By Hiring First In-House Manager

Two very different ways to drive business. But both are social: One of the many ways Mollie Stone's Markets uses its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites is as a way to help "drive" food and grocery shoppers into its nine stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. The grocer also uses stickers like the one pictured above, which it put in the window of its newest store in San Francisco's Castro district in January 2011 in advance of the store's opening in March, to alert and "drive" customer traffic to its social media sites...

But Mollie Stone's doesn't rely on social media alone to "drive" business, particularly not in the case of its three stores in San Francisco. Instead, the grocer literally drives shoppers who live anywhere in the city to the stores, picking them up at home and returning them back with their groceries in tow, in its Mollie Bus (pictured above at the March 9 grand opening of its newest store in San Francisco's Castro District), as long as the customers buy at least $30 worth of groceries.

Food & Grocery Retailing in the 21rst Century: Social Media

Social media is for people of all shapes, sizes and ages (although not too young).

It's also something grocers of all sizes - not just the big chains - should be taking advantage of because in our experience and analysis it offers itself up to smaller (and not so small) regional grocery chains and independents as a potential "great equalizer" in their ever-increasing challenge of competing against the growing power of nationally focused chains like Walmart Stores, Target, Safeway, Supervalu, Inc., Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's and numerous others, which continue to spread throughout the U.S., opening new stores in existing markets as well as launching into new ones.

Regardless if the operation is a chain of 250, 100, 50, five or just a single store, a grocer can create an account on Facebook and Twitter for zero cost, for example, and find someone with some talent and experience in using social media to coordinate and be in charge of it. From there, the grocer has a potentially whole new world of opportunity opened up to it to talk with customers and potential customers, to create added awareness, promote, and most of all to build, enhance and strengthen customer relationships as part of its overall customer service experience and process.

We use "potentially" above for a very good reason: Social media alone isn't a panacea for grocers, regardless of size. Instead it's a potentially powerful platform that if used regularly and used well - like a plant it must be given regular attention and care - can over time become a powerful communications and customer relationship-building tool for grocers of all sizes, along with that potentially "great equalizer" for smaller chains and independents.

Mollie Stone's social media journey

One independent grocer that's recognized both the overall potential power as well as the "great equalizer" aspect of social media is Mill Valley, California-based Mollie Stone's Markets, which operates nine stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and is majority-owned by partners Mike Stone and Dave Bennett.

Mollie Stone's joined the social media world in late 2010 (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites) with some very important help from San Francisco, California-based Reasonate Social Media, which was founded by Eric Harr, who's also the CEO of the firm.

Harr and his team took a comprehensive approach with Mollie Stone's Markets' in partnership with co-owner Dave Bennett, who splits the running of the food and grocery chain with Mike Stone, his partner of  25 years, having founded Mollie Stone's together in 1985.

Harr, Bennett and Stone brought all of Mollie Stone's headquarters office employees together - buyers and merchandisers, finance folks, human resources people and more - together for a number of social media training sessions, so that not only would the process be department and company-wide, but also because they realized that in order to make social media an integrated part of the grocer's overall customer service, marketing and community outreach efforts it had to be something shared by everybody, instead of ending up as a social media ghetto at the company, which often is the case at organizations of all kinds.

Mollie Stone's Markets is now humming on multiple cyber-cylinders when it comes to social media - and most importantly, in our analysis, using it as an integrated part of its overall operations, marketing and customer service functions, which even includes signs in the stores and on store windows inviting shoppers to join the grocer on Twitter and Facebook, for example.

Those multiple cyber-cylinders include very active Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare sites and campaigns, along with active and regular participation on review sites like Yelp, in which Mollie Stone's responds to both criticism and praise (and in-between) of its stores, including aspects like product pricing and customer service.

Reasonate Social Media, which has operated Mollie Stone's various social media sites as part of its consulting relationship with the grocery chain until now, also encouraged co-owner Dave Bennett to step out and become the "face" of Mollie Stone's Markets by appearing in a few videos (like the one above) the firm has produced for the grocery chain, which feature Bennett, who's latest venture, along with partner and fellow wingman Mike Stone, is a specialty foods brand, "Mike and Dave's," the first product being Mike & Dave's Wing Sauce, which we wrote about here in May and again in June.

Elizabeth Milks hired as in-house social media manager

Mollie Stone's Markets has now taken a next big big step in its social media evolutionary process, hiring its first-ever social media project manager, Elizabeth Milks, who is working in-house at the grocer's headquarters in Mill Valley, California (Marin County) and will be using that day-to-day vantage point to increase the amount and variety of social media content Mollie Stone's produces, and to do so in a real time way.

The grocer and Reasonate Social Media are currently in the process of transitioning the day-to-day social media tasks and responsibilities from the firm to in-house at Mollie Stone's Markets, Elizabeth Milks told Fresh & Easy Buzz yesterday.

Mollie Stone's Markets has not publicly announced the hiring of its new social media project manager. Therefore you're reading it here first.

Ms. Milks, who graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006 with a BA Degree in Public Health, worked as a marketing assistant (2008-2011) for VR Research, which is a public records-oriented research firm in Oakland, California. Prior to that she worked in the legal services industry in the Bay Area, following graduation from U.S. Berkeley.

Grocers and social media

Ms. Milks starts her new position at Mollie Stone's with a good base.

For example, Bennett, the chain's head grocery and produce buyers, and a number of other employees regularly use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, having established their own accounts.

Additionally, the fact  Reasonate Social Media worked so closely with Mollie Stone's on a chainwide basis is also a big plus because there exists a strong buy-in for the use of social media throughout the grocery chain, from it's headquarters office to the stores, based on our reporting, research and answers we've received from Dave Bennet, Eric Harr and others at the chain.

Such buy-ins are key in order for a grocer to make social media more than a mere promotional vehicle, instead using it as part of the overall customer-relationship building experience, which includes face-to-face interaction where it counts most, in the stores, enhanced by using social media as a cyber-storefront of sorts, harnessing the potential power of many along with the immediacy factor.

For example, think about product recalls in terms of the power of the immediacy factor. Before Twitter or Facebook, a grocer really had no way to let customers know that the FDA or USDA were recalling this or that product for this or that reason except to post signs in all of its stores and alerting the local media, hoping they old report something about it sooner rather than later.

But today, a grocer's social media coordinator can go on Facebook and Twitter, along with a host of other sites, and communicate to followers that a food product has been recalled literally the moment it's found out. There's no longer a need to rely on third parties like the media. Instead the grocer can communicate directly to its followers (the power of many) on the social media sites. And nearly always those followers will tell others using their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and other social media sites, which harnesses the power of many even further.

This way sound simple (or "so what") because we're already so used to social media despite its young age. But this ability to communicate immediately and directly is revolutionary for food retailers, as are many of the other ways in which social media can be harnessed by grocers who put an effort into doing so. And effort is required, because like those plants, which need attention, care and watering - along with re-potting at times - so too does the use of social media by grocers.

Mollie Stone's Markets is a good example of how grocer's of any size - but particularly those regional chains and independents we mentioned at the start of this story because of the potential "great equalizer" effect - can, if they make a commitment to it, harness the low-cost, high-impact power of social media and use it in an integrated way to enhance what they are already doing at store-level, along with using it to open new doors that previously didn't exist for food and grocery retailers in the pre-cyberspace and pre-social media eras, which seems like it was ages ago but really was only a few years ago, particularly in the case of social media.

Related Stories

June 23, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets' Owners' Eponymous Mike & Dave's Wing Sauce Grows Display Wings

May 16, 2011: 'Wing Man-to-Wing Man' - Mollie Stone's Markets' 'Mike & Dave' Create, Set to Launch 'Personal Brand' Wing Sauce

March 7, 2011: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Superior Grocers, Mollie Stone's All Opening New Stores in California Wednesday

March 1, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Will Open its New Store in San Francisco's Castro District On March 9

February 17, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Planning to Open Newest Store in San Francisco First Week in March

January 13, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Taking Over Closed 18th Street Delano's IGA Market in San Francisco's Castro District

January 28, 2011: Mollie Stone's Markets Confirms Our January 13 Report; Announces New San Francisco Store Via Twitter & Facebook

November 30, 2010: DeLano's IGA Markets Closing Five Stores in San Francisco & Marin County; Fairfax, Davis Units to Remain Open (For Now)

November 29, 2010: Veteran Grocer Harley DeLano's 'DeLano IGA Markets' Chain On the Verge of Closure in San Francisco Bay Area

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Hires Social Media Manager - New Position at the Grocer

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has hired Nicole DeRuiter (pictured at top) as its corporate social media/public relations manager, a new position at the El Segundo, California-based fresh food and grocery chain.

DeRuiter will be responsible for the strategy, coordination and management of the 172-store chain's presence in social media, as well as coordinating social media use within the various departments at Fresh & Easy.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market currently uses a company blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, YouTube channel and Flickr.com photo-sharing site as its primary corporate social media outlets.

The retailer's public relations and marketing staffs also conduct social media-based outreach campaigns to a group of foodie and mom-bloggers, regularly sending them free packages of store brand products, asking the bloggers to write about the items in their blogs and post about Fresh & Easy on their social media sites. 

Fresh & Easy also invites the bloggers to various food and wine-oriented special events, where it "wines and dines" the bloggers and social media-users, in the hope they'll help get the word out and create some word-of-mouth buzz about the grocery chain.

Prior to joining Fresh & Easy, Nicole Deruiter was an account executive a Matrixx Pictures.

Before that she was a manager of emerging media for online florist Teleflora and a senior account executive at marketing-public relations firm PCGCampbell.

In addition to her background in the public relations field, Deruiter has prior work experience in radio and television production.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's new social media maven is a graduate of the University of Southern California's Annenberg Program on Online Communities, a 12-month graduate program focused on web-based social/new media skills and program management at the university's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, where she earned a Masters of Communications Management degree. Ms. Deruiter has a bachelor's degree in broadcast and public relations from Central Michigan University.

To date, social media duties at Tesco's Fresh & Easy have primarily been a shared effort between the grocer's in-house marketing and public relations teams and one of its outside public relations agencies, APCO Worldwide.

Sallie Boorman, an account manager who works out of APCO's Sacramento, California office, has been a key player in helping Fresh & Easy establish and maintain its social media presence, particularly on Twitter and Facebook.

In 2009, Boorman also stepped in to help bring back to life Fresh & Easy's corporate blog, which was suffering from extreme infrequent posting neglect at the hands of its creator and at the time only poster, director of marketing Simon Uwings.

Today Boorman, Wonnacott and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market staffers Stephanie Patryla and Gary Turner each post semi-regularly on the company blog. [Read - March 29, 200: Things Are Improving Over at the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog: Perhaps They've Been Listening to Us?; and February 17, 2009: Getting By (Much Better Now) 'With A Little Help From My Friends:' New Talent On Board the Fresh & Easy Corporate Marketing Blog One Year Hence.]

Before being hired as Fresh & Easy's public and governmental relations chief last year, Wonnacott worked for APCO Worldwide, where he was a manager. He's been Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate spokesman since 2007. However, he did so as an APCO Worldwide employee, until the Tesco-owned grocer hired him last year.

Fresh & Easy began advertising for the social media/public relations manager position early this year. It's a part of the grocer's efforts to beef-up its in-house public and community relations team. That process began with the hiring of Wonnocott last year.

According to our sources, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market created the new social media-focused public relations manager position and has made the new hire, in large part because the grocer wants to better connect with customers and potential customers via cyberspace and its various online social communities.

For example, Fresh & Easy, taking a page from the marketing playbooks of popular grocers Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's, has beginning earlier this year increased its use of storytelling - telling stories about the makers of its private brand products, for example - as a way it hopes will help it to better build the overall Fresh & Easy brand.

As an example, Fresh & Easy has increased it's use of brief videos and other forms of storytelling as part of this strategy and practice, featuring the stories in the fortnightly online promotional missives it sends to members of its e-mail-based "friends of fresh & easy" group., along with in other communications venues. 

One of the missions of the new social media manager will be to use social media in an integrated way to help communicate these stories as part of the grocer's increased efforts to build the Fresh & Easy brand.

Reader Resource

[Readers: Fresh & Easy Buzz has written extensively about social media and grocers over the last three-plus years. For a selection of those stories, including many focused on United Kingdom-based Tesco and Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, click on the following links: grocers and social media,  Grocers on Twitter, social marketing, social media, Twitter,  Fresh and Easy on Twitter, Tesco on Twitter, Fresh and Easy corporate blog, Social networking sites, Facebook, Philip Clarke.]

Two Weeks On: Tesco Launches New @UKTesco Twitter Feed Today

The Insider - Heard on the Street

Tesco, which owns El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and is the leading food, grocery and general merchandise retailer in the United Kingdom where it's headquartered, today launched its @UKTesco customer care/customer service Twitter feed, which is something that should be of particular interest to Fresh & Easy Buzz readers who follow my columns.

Here's why: In my March 18, 2011 column - The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media - I talked in general about new Tesco CEO Philip Clarke's decision to make social media, particularly Twitter, an important part of the global retail chain's communications strategy.

In the column I also offered some specific discussion about a Twitter feed called @TescoStores, incorrectly reporting it was the property of Tesco, something I corrected in a follow-up column on March 22, 2011, which you can read here: In Twitter Veritas: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Sets 'The Insider' Straight Via A Tweet.

In my March 18 column I also offered a prediction, saying Tesco would start posting tweets on @TescoStores no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011. Although I was incorrect about the still unknown ownership of the @TescoStores feed, I was right in terms of the timeline I offered in my prediction: Today's launching of @UKTesco is one day shy of two weeks from March 18, 2011. Launch date prediction: right on; name of Twitter feed launched, incorrect.

The story begins on March 18 when I wrote about a meeting CEO Philip Clarke, who took over as chief executive early this month from retired CEO Terry Leahy, held with executives and staffers at Tesco's UK corporate headquarters to discuss the increased use of social media and social commerce at the company.

As I noted in the column and in the March 22 follow up, since taking over as CEO Clarke has made the use of Twitter at Tesco and by Tesco executives a centerpiece of his first month as head of the third-largest global retailing company in the world. Fresh & Easy Buzz first reported on the development in a story in February. See - February 24, 2011 Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter.

The social media focus by Clarke, who launched his own Twitter feed in November 2010 and prior to taking over as CEO this month was head of Tesco's corporate information technology and European retail operations, is a good move by the Tesco chief in that, among other pluses, it serves to distinguish him right our of the gate from former CEO Terry Leahy, who although was far from anti-technology wasn't all that keen on using social media at Tesco, although the retailer did begin using it under Leahy's tenure.

Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has been using social media, including Twitter and Facebook, aggressively since early 2009.

As I wrote about on March 18 and March 22, Tesco has launched a number of specialty Twitter feeds (many in 2010) for its United Kingdom retail and related businesses, which comprises about 70% of total global sales, but had yet to operate a corporate or customer service type central Twitter feed. That's where @TescoStores came in.

But since @TescoStores doesn't belong to Tesco, as you can read about here, the company created @UKTesco to be its overall customer care/service feed for its United Kingdom operations.

And @UKTesco, although it's not @TescoStores, was launched today, one day under two weeks from March 18, 2011.

I'm told, without equivocation, that @UKTesco belongs to the United Kingdom-based retailer, as it says is the case in the very first tweet posted on the feed: "Welcome to the official Twitter account for Tesco customer care UK. If you've got any queries, let us know, we're here to help. about 6 hours ago via HootSuite."

But it probably wouldn't hurt Tesco to get the Twitter feed "verified" though, using Twitter's simple verification process. You know, just in case there might be a misunderstanding.

- The Insider

[Readers: Read 'The Insider's' past columns, including his news-breaking reporting and analysis on the Sprouts Farmers Market-Henry Farmers Market acquisition-merger, at this link - The Insider.

In Twitter Veritas: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Sets 'The Insider' Straight Via A Tweet

The Insider - Heard on the Street

In my most recent column - March 18, 2011: The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media - I said the Twitter feed @TescoStores belonged to United Kingdom-based global retailer Tesco, which owns El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

In the column I also asked the question: When will Tesco start tweeting on @TescoStores?

I asked that question because the only two tweets on the feed are from April 2009, when it was set up.

I then offered a prediction that the retailer would start tweeting on the feed no later than to weeks from March 18.

I was wrong on two counts.

First Count: The @TescoStores Twitter feed doesn't belong to United Kingdom-based Tesco, according to CEO Philipe Clarke, who said so in a tweet today.

Second Count: Since I was wrong on the above (the premise), it then follows that my prediction that Tesco will tweet on @TescoStores no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011 is also incorrrect.

Below is today's tweet from Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, addressing @TescoStores:



clarkepatesco



March 22, 2011:"Sorry been rather quiet last few days - family illness. Been asked why @tescostores not tweeted much: would you believe it isn't ours! about 9 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®"

Being the competitor I am, I suppose at the least I still have a shot at the prediction part of my March 18 column being correct, if the person who owns @TescoStores contacts CEO Clarke post-haste and offers to turn over the Twitter feed to Tesco, on the condition the retailer start tweeting on it no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011. Come to think of it, if that were to happen, it also would serve as "column-extender" (think editorial Hamburger Helper) for 'The Insider.'

Silver linings

Despite being wrong on the two counts detailed above, it's good to know my column is being read by people close to Clarke, and that those folks, after reading my March 18 piece, asked the Tesco CEO a mere couple days later "why @TescoStores (has) not tweeted much."

Additionally I'm glad Philip Clarke addressed the topic of my March 18 column in his tweet today. Why? I'd rather make a mistake and learn the why rather than be right but never learn the correct answer.

Therefore I thank the CEO of Tesco for that, vis-a-vis his tweet today. And if the only entity that actually did the "asking" to Clarke was my Friday (March 18, 2011) column in Fresh & Easy Buzz, then I hope he got something more out of reading it, as I hope is the case for all who read it, than just my mistake.

Despite getting it wrong about @TescoStores belonging to Tesco plc, and thus having my prediction invalidated by the faulty premise, had I not done so it's possible we (readers and myself) never would have learned what we learned from CEO Clarke's tweet today.

So I'm actually happier than I normally would be to have been wrong in this particular instance because it's serving as a reminder or simple object lesson for me. That reminder: That as long as you're right most of the time, and in my columns I have been, then it's OK to be wrong every so often - particularly if you take a bit of a risk in being so - as long as you admit your mistake, set the record straight (which I'm doing in this column) and learn from the experience, even if its a minor mistake and experience like a column about Twitter feeds and related subjects.

After all, there's always a silver lining in life and in business, if you allow yourself to be open to discover it and learn from it. I want use that worn out phrase "teachable moment," however, even though I suppose I just did.

Meanwhile, to the owner of @TescoStores on Twitter, you can tweet your offer to give the @TescoStores Twitter feed to Tesco CEO Philip Clarke at: @clarkeptesco.

And to the owner of the Twitter feed, I ask just one favor: If CEO Clarke is interested, please make the offer to give him @TescoStores contingent on his agreeing to have Tesco post at least one tweet between now and no later than March 29 on it. After all, my two week prediction clock, which began on March 18, is ticking away. Let's be clear though: It's not like I'm begging.

- The Insider

Related Column: March 18, 2011: The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media

>Read past columns by Fresh & Easy Buzz's 'The Insider' columnist at the following link - The Insider

The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media

The Insider - Heard on the Street

As I write this column, Tesco's new CEO Philipe Clarke and his deputy Tim Mason, Tesco's new group deputy CEO and the CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA, are meeting with various members of the company's management team in the United Kingdom and one of the key items on the meeting agenda is social media and social commerce.

As we've previously reported in Fresh & Easy Buzz, one of Clarke's first initiatives since taking over from Terry Leahy on March 2 as CEO of Tesco plc is to increase the use of social media throughout Tesco's global operations, which range from the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, to Asia and the United States (Fresh & Easy.) [See - [See - February 24, 2011: Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter.]

Tweeting with the CEO

One of Clarke's social media platforms of choice is Twitter, which he started using in November 2010. Under the new CEO's initiative, nearly all of Tesco's senior managment and numerous members of its mid-management team have been setting up Twitter accounts over the last few weeks.

Among these "tweeters" is Clarke's deputy, Tim Mason, who as we reported on February 24, 2011 [Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter] has had a Twitter feed since 2009 but only recently started tweeting on it.

Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which operates 169 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada, was out in front of parent company Tesco in using social media in general and Twitter specifically. Fresh & Easy, with the help of a social media savvy PR consultant, set up Facebook and Twitter accounts in early 2009, along with a Flickr photo-sharing site. Previous to that the grocer had a YouTube channel, which it continues to use as part of its multi-channel and multi-site social media efforts.

When will "TescoStores" go live on Twitter?

Fresh & Easy wasn't the only Tesco entity to set up a Twitter Feed in early April 2009. Tesco plc itself set up a corporate Twitter account, "TescoStores," which you can view here, on April 3, 2009. However, its first and to date only two tweets were made on that very same day, April 3, 2009. The two April 3, 2009 tweets:

>All Easter Eggs Half Price This Weekend Only - Hurry While Stocks Last! 2:33 AM Apr 3rd, 2009 via web

>Every Little Helps - Welcome to Tesco on Twitter! 2:33 AM Apr 3rd, 2009 via web.

"TescoStores," which is a "real" and not pseudo Tesco Twitter feed - it's followed for example by CEO Philipe Clarke, deputy CEO Tim Mason and other Tesco executives - has remained dormant since those first - and last - two tweets on April 3, 2009, despite the fact the corporate feed has 6,165 followers at the time this piece is being published. That's a good number of followers for a Twitter feed that's had zero activity for two years.

Since the corporate feed was set up in April 2009, Tesco has established a number of Twitter feeds that it's using regularly, one of the newest being its food-oriented "TescoRealFood." It also has separate Twitter feeds for Tesco Magazine, clothing at Tesco, Tesco digital and other specific categories.

When I heard this morning that one of the topics of the meeting led by Tesco CEO Philip Clarke today was going to be social media and commerce, I immediately thought about the "TescoStores" Twitter feed, since I've noticed that nearly all the new Tesco tweeters have been following it over the last few weeks but that it remains dormant.

One Tesco executive recently suggested to me in confidence the reason the Tesco corporate Twitter feed has yet to see any action post the two April 3, 2009 tweets is because no decision has been made on how to use it or even if to keep it, adding it would be a shame not to use it considering how many followers there are despite not being in use.

Perhaps one of the outcomes of today's meeting at Tesco corporate headquarters in the UK, where social media and social commerce are being discussed, will be a decision about how to use the long dormant "TescoStores" Twitter feed, which really is a no-brainier. It's a corporate feed - use it as such, just like Walmart and others do, adding whatever special emphasis and meaning it can to brand it as Tesco. And one of the great things about Twitter feeds is they're works in progress and can be fine-tuned in real time.

After all, using Twitter is something CEO Clarke has rapidly implemented within Tesco, the result being an explosion of new Tesco executive and employee Twitter feeds being set up over the last few weeks. Not all of the new feeds are being used though. And only a handful of the Tesco executives who've recently set up the new Twitter feeds are using them in any regular sort of way.

'Tweet me up' Philipe: Every Little Helps

CEO Clarke and Tesco should think about the "TescoStores" Twitter feed in this way: Hub-and-spokes. The Tesco corporate Twitter feed is the hub (or mothership) from which all of the Tesco specialty (Tesco Magazine, Tesco.com, Tesco clothing, digital, ect.) and individual (executives, employees, divisions like Fresh & Easy, Tesco Asia, ect.) Twitter feeds look to for information and inspiration, while at the same time providing grass roots (divisional and individual tweeters) information and inspiration to the hub, or mothership. The concept is similar to the hub-and-spokes wheel Tesco uses in its overall strategy planning.

After all, a dormant mothership, be it on Twitter or elsewhere, makes for an incomplete family. Therefore, decision or not at today's meeting, Tesco should either start using "TescoStores" or just get rid of it, as dormancy is something that's neither good for fresh fruit, grocery stores, or social media sites.

My prediction: Tesco will start posting tweets on "TescoStores" no later than two weeks from today.

From a personal and editorial perspective, If I'm wrong and Tesco doesn't do so, then I'm merely wrong on a prediction (which the editor hates me to make) as your humble columnist.

But if my prediction is wrong, from the wider Tesco corporate perspective it means Tesco is really wrong, because leaving the corporate Twitter feed dormant, which is analogous from a corporate social media perspective to leaving the storefront of a grocery store dormant and unattended - it's kind of like forgetting to turn the sign on the shop door over from "Closed" to "Open for Business" each morning. (Yes, it's a sort of a win-win then either way for your humble columnist.)

For a retailer, God, or the devil depending on your preferred usage, is in the details, both in its stores and in the social space it uses (or leaves dormant) in cyberspace. And like it's said by one major global retailer - Tesco - when it comes to its making sure each and every detail is just right: "Every Little Helps."

- The Insider

[Fresh & Easy Buzz Readers: Read all 'The Insider's' past columns in Fresh & Easy Buzz at this link - The Insider, including his news-breaking reporting and analysis on the Sprouts Farmers Market-Henry' Farmers Market acquisition-merger.

Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter

The Changing of the Guard at Tesco

News/Analysis/Commentary

Breaking Buzz: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason (pictured above in a Fresh & Easy store) is tweeting, as in posting those no-greater than 140-character messages on one of the world's most-popular and fastest-growing social media and messaging sites, Twitter.com.

Mason himself, or one of his staff members, set up a Twitter feed in 2009 for the CEO, which for over two years hasn't been graced with a single tweet by the head of Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market fresh food and grocery chain, which as of today has 164 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona -- until now.

The CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market posted his very first tweet on Sunday, February 20, apparently shortly after enjoying a ski trip to Vail, Colorado, where he spotted First Lady Michelle Obama on the slopes. Tim Mason's first tweet on February 20, 2011: "Inaugural tweetThe first lady looking good skiing in Vail. Very cool in grey,same brand of ski jacket as my wife, I managed to get a photo."

The First Lady indeed was on a trip to Vail during the extended President's Day holiday weekend, as was announced by the White House and has been reported on by numerous national media outlets.

Mason looks to have enjoyed posting his first tweet on February 20; so much so in fact he followed it up with four additional tweets on the same day.

Two of those additional February 20 tweets involve a bit of lobbying Mason was doing at the California State Capital in Sacramento, including a visit with Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles), who prior to getting elected in 2008 to represent the people of Los Angeles' 46th District was the political director for the United Food & Commercial Workers (union) Local 324.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, including local 324, has been trying to organize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's store-level employees since the first batch of stores were opened in November 2007, as we've reported on and written extensively about here.

Pérez was elected Assembly Speaker in January 2010. His career in the organized labor movement spans 15-years.

Here's what (italics) the CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market "tweeted" on February 20, about a visit he had on Friday, February 18, with Assembly Speaker Perez: "Friday in Sacramento,speaker Perez gave me a plastic duck. Grand office,large plastic duck collection."

Interestingly, a second (the fourth out of the five tweets) February 20 tweet had to do with First Lady Michelle Obama, once again on the ski slopes in Vail.

The fifth February 20 tweet is about starting the day off with coffee beans from Fresh & Easy.

Mason followed up his five tweets on February 20 with one on February 21, one on February 22, and one yesterday, February 23, for a total of eight so far. Mason's last tweet, from yesterday: "The talk of the Capitol last week.Gov. Brown has replaced the table in his office with a picnic table.I guess so he can say this ain't no..." (There is nothing more after the no... Perhaps it's coming today?)

There were no February 24 tweets at the time this piece was published. But if the current track record holds out...expect at least one later today.

If you want to read the tweets not included in this piece, you'll have to find Tim Mason's feed on Twitter.com.

Mason currently has 40 followers - and is currently following three of those 40 followers - the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market feed, Fresh & Easy director of marketing Simon Uwins, who hasn't tweeted since October 1, 2009 and - most importantly - his new boss, soon-to-be Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, who's been "tweeting" since November 2010.

We're willing to bet Fresh & Easy CEO Mason's Twitter feed follower-count goes up a bit past the current 40-followers after this post is published.

As our 'The Insider' columnist reported yesterday - February 23, 2011: Incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Visits America - And Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market - the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO's new boss, Philip Clarke, just recently spent 10 days or so, from February 6 -to- February 15, in the U.S., including at Fresh & Easy's Southern California headquarters with Tim Mason, who is adding the title of Tesco deputy CEO to his current one as CEO of Fresh & Easy.

Clark, who officially becomes Tesco's CEO in March but is already sharing duties with outgoing CEO Terry Leahy, comes to Tesco's corner office having held two senior executive positions at Tesco, which he joined in 1974 - head of Europe and Asia operations and chief of corporate information technology.

It's that latter position that makes Clarke a bit more keen on the Internet and particularly the use of social media that outgoing CEO Leahy was. And in November of last year, Clarke, who had been named Tesco's CEO-designate not long before that, started his Twitter feed, posting his first tweet on November 4, 2010.

As incoming CEO, Clarke is putting a greater emphasis on the use of social media, including Twitter, at Tesco, and among its executives, both those based at corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and elsewhere around the globe.

Tesco UK has been using Twitter under Terry Leahy's charge. The retailer set up a food-oriented "Tesco Food" Twitter-feed last year, which its been using regularly.

In 2010 Tesco also started a couple special-interest Twitter feeds, including one focusing on clothing, which it sells in many of its stores in the UK, Europe and Asia. It's using the feed regularly at present.

Tesco has had a corporate Twitter feed, "Tesco Stores," since 2009. However, just two tweets, both posted on April 3 2009, have been made on the site despite the fact it has over 5,000 followers. We're told Philip Clarke plans to change that inactivity as part of his emphasis on the greater use of social media at Tesco.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market launched its Fresh & Easy Twitter feed in mid-2008 and has been regularly active on it since then, using it well in a number of ways, in our analysis.

Fresh & Easy CEO Mason's first tweet, on February 20, 2011, came a mere five days after his new boss, Philip Clarke, departed Los Angeles on February 15 to return home to the United Kingdom, according to 'The Insider's column linked above and published yesterday.

If the timing between Clarke's arrival and departure at Fresh & Easy headquarters in El Segundo California - February 10 -through-February 15 - and Tim Mason's beginning to tweet on February 20, after having his Twitter feed sitting dormant for over two years, isn't simply a mere coincidence, which sources tell us it isn't, then it appears incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke is a pretty good motivator when it comes to social media adoption and use among his key executives.

Fresh & Easy Buzz, which is on Twitter @FreshNEasyBuzz, welcomes Tesco deputy CEO and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason to Twitter.

And now that Fresh & Easy chief Mason is tweeting, we wonder if a new tweet will be forthcoming from Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market director of marketing Simon Uwins, who's most recent update was in 2009.

After all, if Philip Clarke can motivate Mason to tweet for the very first time, Mason, who is Uwins' boss and prior to moving to the U.S. to head up Fresh & Easy in California was in charge of corporate marketing at Tesco in the United Kingdom, might want to follow Clarke's example, and have a Twitter-chat with Uwins, one marketing guy to another, letting him know that incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke doesn't like dormant Twitter feeds. Just a thought. After all, marketers should set the example when it comes to social media and social media marketing, shouldn't they?

Related Stories

We've written extensively in Fresh & Easy Buzz about the use of social media, including Twitter, in the food and grocery retailing industry, by Tesco's Fresh & Easy, other retailers, and in general. To read a selection of those stories, click on the following links: Fresh and Easy on Twitter, grocers and social media, Grocers on Twitter, Twitter, F-E Gal, iKristen.

Integrated Retail & Twitter Wine Promotion Rates Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market A Gold Medal

Wine & Beer Category Report: News/Analysis/Commentary

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market today launched a full-line-drive, mix and match wine category promotion in its 159 fresh food and grocery stores in California, southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

In the promotion, which runs from June 23 -to- July 6, 2010, customers get 20% off the total of any six or more bottles of wine they purchase.

Additionally, Fresh & Easy is giving away a reusable cotton wine bag with all single-customer wine purchases of $25 or more.

In and of itself there's nothing particularly unique or special about the promo as grocer wine category promotions go, although we like the free wine bag addition. It adds an additional layer to the promotion, beyond just the 20% price focus.

But Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is kicking off the wine promotion with a "Twitter Wine Tasting" this evening, starting at 7 pm pacific time.

This is the grocer's second such "Twitter Wine Tasting," in which participants purchase the wines to be tasted and pondered in the comfort of their homes at a Fresh & Easy store, and then share their questions, comments and evaluations on the various varieties of vino via Twitter.com.

The first such tasting was on February 9 of this year. Read our story about Fresh & Easy's first "Twitter Wine Tasting" - February 8, 2010: 'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night.

Tonight's wine tippling tweeters will be tasting three of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's proprietary wines. The three brands-varieties are: Napa Family Vineyards Chardonnay, which retails for under $12; The Vine Yard Late Harvest Riesling, which sells for under $8; and Re del Castello Chianti Classico, which goes for under $10 at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market stores. Fresh & Easy is featuring two of the varieties, along with a few others, in its "Friends of Fresh & Easy" e-mail promo which it sent out late yesterday. That's what we call "positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration," or PPPMI for short. More on that concept a little later below.

In order to participate in the virtual wine tasting event (virtual on twitter but real at home) people with a Twitter account - those who don't already have one can create one in a couple minutes - simply sign up at Taste Live, send an RSVP here, buy the three wines at a Fresh & Easy store, and then log-in back at Taste Live, at 7 pm tonight.

According to the grocer, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market wine category manager Karen Fletcher will be tweeting, answering questions and following the tasters' evaluations at its Twitter.com account - @fresh_and_easy - starting at 7 pm. The tippling tweeters need only to use the Twitter hashtag #FreshEasyWines in order to be able to view the wine tweets of their fellow tasters on Twitter tonight.

Positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration

As regular Fresh & Easy Buzz readers are aware - and non-regular readers of the blog will soon become aware of - we're big advocates of integrated promotions that tie-in what happens on the store floor (merchandising and promotional merchandising) with various forms of media, particularly forms of interactive social media like Twitter, Facebook and the like.

We've been suggesting to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in our strategy session-oriented posts since about mid-2008 that the grocer needs to focus much more on doing integrated promotions across all categories. One of the Fresh & Easy's problems or challenges, in our analysis, has been a failure to integrate; to use multiple platforms, integrating on the store floor merchandising with various forms of media. For example, we liked this recent promotion at Fresh & Easy. But the grocer failed to take it beyond the stores; to integrate it with other media in a meaningful and significant way.

Merchandising and media-related promotions such as the wine promotion-twitter event, which tie-in the stores and the larger consumer world, are something Fresh & Easy needs to do more regularly in order to create excitement, drive sales into the stores, build brand, and create new, much-needed customers.

In terms of the various categories, in our analysis the best merchandising and promotional activity Fresh & Easy has done thus far is in the wine category.

Wine category manager Karen Fletcher has been in her position at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market from the very beginning. Therefore we give her the primary credit for this development.
Fresh & Easy's wine and beer category has flipped-flopped between the directors of the grocer's two buying and merchandising departments, fresh and grocery - and not totally against Ms. Fletcher's objection - three times since 2007.

The wine and beer category was originally (and logically) under the grocery department. But it later was moved to the fresh department for internal reasons. Then in the summer of 2008 the category was switched back to grocery, under the supervision of Sean McCurley, who made a lateral move at the time from director of fresh foods to grocery director - and who recently returned to Tesco in the UK - replacing Charlotte Maxwell, who departed Fresh & Easy to return to Tesco in the UK, which she left the employ of shortly after. (Yes, Sean McCurley and Karen Fletcher had a strong working relationship. They both also came to Fresh & Easy from Tesco in the UK.)

Tweet, drink and be merry

While a Twitter-based wine tasting doesn't have the glamour and excitement of a live tasting, say at a Napa Valley winery, it certainly offers some advantages. Among those advantages include: being able to dress comfortably - although we don't want to hear about participants wearing boxer shorts or old sweat pants while wine tasting and tweeting tonight - relaxing on your couch at home with a laptop computer nestled close by or a smart phone in hand, and being able to stock the fridge with one's own choice of foods to cleanse the palate between bottles of wine.

From a marketing and merchandising standpoint for Fresh & Easy the tasting offers the grocer a chance to get people into the stores to purchase the three bottles of wine, and then hopefully buy additional food and grocery items. But much more than that, as we said earlier, it integrates what is happening at retail - the June 23 -to- July 6 wine promotion - with a wider social media-based promotion, thereby helping over time (with repetition and other different integrated promotions added on) to create a story around the wine category at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Doing this - integrating what goes happens on the store floor with media promotions and events - and doing it regularly, comprehensively and in a creative yet practical manner (need to sell product as well as create buzz) is what good merchandising and promotions are all about, as in creating and telling a good story, which in many ways is the essence of a potentially successful marketing campaign.

Salute! In 140 characters or less of course.

Readers: Click here to read a selection of past posts in Fresh & Easy Buzz on wine category merchandising and related topics.

'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has teamed up with the online wine tasting community Taste Live, and is holding a virtual wine tasting event tomorrow evening (February 9, 2010) from 7:00 pm -to- 8: 00 pm (Pacific Standard Time).

Fresh & Easy is calling the virtual wine tasting a "Twitter Tasting" because the event will focus on tasters' tweeting their evaluations of the three wines being tasted on the social media site Twitter.com.

Tasters will be sampling three of Fresh & Easy's proprietary wines during the one hour virtual and social media wine tasting tomorrow night.

The three wines are: Montcadi Cava Rose from Spain, which sells for under $6; Boro Hills Sauvignon Blanc (from New Zealand), which sells at Fresh & Easy for about $11; and Matuco Malbec 2007 (Argentina), which retails for under $10.

Tasters can buy one, two or all three of the wines at a local Fresh & Easy market for the tasting. Here's a brief description of each of the wine varieties.

Taste Live often holds these virtual wine tastings in partnership with various wineries like Kunde Family Wines and others.

Here's how the virtual "Twitter Tasting" works:

>Those interested in participating first need to register at Taste Live using their Twitter or Facebook account, or by creating an account at the tastelive.com Web site here.

>Once registered, event participants then need to RSVP their intended participation to Tesco's Fresh & Easy here.

>Tasters then buy one or more of the three wines being tasted during the one hour "Twitter Tasting" at a Fresh & Easy store.

Karen Fletcher, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's category manager for wine, is hosting the "Twitter Tasting" tomorrow night, according to Fresh & Easy.

During the one hour event Fresh & Easy will be tweeting at its @fresh_and_easy account on Twitter.com.

The grocer's social media team has created a Twitter hashtag - #FandEWine - which it wants tweeter-wine tasters to use after each of their tweets in order to be able to track the one hour "Twitter Tasting."

Such hashtags used on Twitter allow for users to search particular topics on the site by entering the hashtag into its search function.

Fresh & Easy wine merchandising & marketing

First, Fresh & Easy Buzz likes the concept of the "Twitter Tasting." We give Tesco Fresh & Easy's marketing team, particularly its social media folks, a thumbs up for giving it a try.

The reason we like it is because it's different, is a bit out of the box, and fits in well with the much improved job (since about mid-2009) the grocer's social media team has been doing using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

We also like it because although it's virtual, it's also participatory - it brings tweeters and others together in a form of community around a common event - wine tasting.

Such uses of social media can over time build up a strong core of Fresh & Easy wine shoppers-consumers if done well.

It's using social media for marketing purposes but the event emphasises the "social" over the "marketing" aspect because of the focus on the wine tasting. Participants can be as critical as they want about the wines in their tweets, which means Fresh & Easy can't control the marketing message, like a retailer can do with paid advertising and the like.

One of Tesco's goals with Fresh & Easy is to build the Fresh & Easy retail brand in part through making its proprietary wines and wine merchandising program "famous." In fact, this is one of the charges the grocer gave to the marketing-oriented public relations firms it interviewed in March-April 2008.

Additionally, the fantastic success of wine sales at Trader Joe's hasn't been something lost on Tesco. It's no accident Fresh & Easy's wine and beer program looks very similar to Trader Joe's in terms of product selection, merchandising and marketing.

Fresh & Easy's wine program or wines aren't famous yet. But creative marketing programs like the "Twitter Tasting," combined with good product selection and merchandising, can go a long way in brand building, in our analysis.

Of course, key to tomorrow night's "Twitter (wine) Tasting" being a success is the fact that it has participants. The more tweets the better. Also, the more critical - not just pro the wines tasted - tweets during the tasting the more interesting it will be.

After all, when it comes to criticism (and even a bit of whining), some of the best involves wines.

[Readers: Click here for a selection of past stories from Fresh & Easy Buzz on Tesco Fresh & Easy's wine program, wine category merchandsing, and related topics and issues.]

iKristen Buys Her Fresh & Easy Bag(s) -- and It's Almost the Right One: A Tale About the Power of Social Media Sites For Grocer-Consumer Interaction

iKristen saw the Fresh & Easy reusable shopping bag pictured here on the grocer's flickr.com site and wanted it. When she went to her neighborhood Fresh & Easy market it didn't have her desired bag. But she bought two of the reusable bags pictured above at the store anyway. [Photo Credit: iKristen from Twitpic.]

Grocers & Social Media: iKristen and Tesco's Fresh & Easy

In a story this week [Monday, April 27, 2009 Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr] about Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market adding the flickr online photo-sharing media site to the portfolio of social media sites it's currently using, we highlighted the potential power of social media sites for grocers by including an exchange on flickr and on the micro-blogging social media site Twitter.com between iKristen, a user of both sites, and Tesco's Fresh & Easy, which has a feed on Twitter in addition to its page on flickr.com.

iKristen, who says she shops often at a Fresh & Easy market in her neighborhood, spotted a picture of a Fresh & Easy reusable canvas shopping bag she liked on Fresh & Easy's flickr page. She posted a comment on the picture at the Fresh & Easy flickr site, asking where she could buy the bag.

She also did double-social-media-site-duty by posting a "Tweet" to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Twitter.com feed, asking the same question: Where she could get the reusable bag she liked.

A member of Tesco Fresh & Easy's marketing or public relations team responded back to iKristen on Twitter, suggesting how she could find the reusable bag she wanted.

Since Fresh & Easy Buzz uses Twitter.com we posted the April 27 piece [Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr] on our Twitter feed. [www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

And fellow Twitter-user iKristen saw and read our post in which she is mentioned.

In addition to being an avid social media site user, iKristen also has a Blog, "Mom of 2 Girls: It's complicated and It's simple,"which we just recently learned about.

After reading our April 27, 2009 piece in which we mentioned her exchange with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market over her desire to find out where she could purchase the reusable bag, she decided to post a "thank you" to Fresh & Easy Buzz about our mentioning her in our story in her Blog.

[Read iKristen's April 28, 2009 post headlined: "I Feel Special" here.]

IKristen now informs Fresh & Easy Buzz via Twitter.com that she has bought a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag -- two in fact, she says. See her "Tweet" (Twitter-talk for a post) below:

iKristen@freshneasybuzz I got my bag 2 in fact! But I bought them :) http://twitpic.com/47zyu10:33 AM Apr 29th from TwitterFon.

iKristen's comment in her "Tweet" about "buying" the two bags has to with a suggestion we made in our April 27 piece that Tesco's Fresh & Easy should give her a free bag in return for all of the positive social media "word-of-mouth" awareness she created for the bag, and thus Fresh & Easy.

But sadly, iKristen wasn't able to get the original Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag she liked and much desired on the grocer's flickr page. View that bag here (at the top of the page). The two bags she bought are the "Organic" version pictured at the top of our story and here.

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store where iKristen shops -- her neighborhood market -- didn't have the version of the bag she wanted -- the original one from flickr.

Below are iKristen's "Tweets" to Fresh & Easy Buzz explaining what happened when she went shopping for her Fresh & Easy reusable bag:

1. iKristen@FreshNEasyBuzz the lady that worked there didn't seem to know what I was talking about lol. 6 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to FreshNEasyBuzz. (We had asked her via a "Tweet" a bit earlier why she didn't buy the bag she wanted. She had earlier "Tweeted" us a link showing the bag she bought.)

2. iKristen@FreshNEasyBuzz I bought 2 of the organic, I like those too. my F&E stores didn't have the ones from the flickr page. 6 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to FreshNEasyBuzz

Even though she couldn't get the original reusable bag of her desire -- the one she liked from the flickr page -- good Tesco's Fresh & Easy customer that she is, iKristen still bought two reusable bags from her neighborhood Fresh & Easy store -- the "Organic" version Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag. (Pictured at top.)

But it just so happens that the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employee from the retailer's marketing or PR staff who "Tweeted" back to iKristen regarding her flickr and Twitter inquiries about where she can get the bag told her this:

@iKristen you can get the tote with the apple clock up where the rest of the canvas bags are sold (by the check outs). Its my fav bag too! about 9 hours ago from web in reply to iKristen.

But, not only wasn't the bag in that spot in iKristen's neighborhood Tesco's Fresh & Easy store -- it didn't exist at all in the store.

And since Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market concept is a "neighborhood" market, a customer should be able to get a bag pictured on the retailer's flickr page at her neighborhood Fresh & Easy store, rather than having to drive all over looking for it at other Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market units; and perhaps still not finding the bag. At least we think so.

Having to drive all over looking at other stores outside of her neighborhood sort of defeats the "neighborhood" concept of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market for iKristen and other shoppers, after all.

Therefore, since the well intentioned advice to iKristen from the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter "Tweeter" was a bit of a bum steer (unintentional of course), and sense the bag also happens to be his or her "fav," wouldn't it be nice -- and good best practices marketing and customer service -- for that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter "Tweeter" to locate one of those reusable bags -- the one iKristen wanted to start with -- and send it to good and loyal Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market customer iKristen for free? We sure think it would be a good move.

iKristen isn't asking for a free bag (she has no idea we are mentioning her again in a post let alone focusing this one on her social media interaction with Tesco's Fresh & Easy). She bought two bags and appears happy.

But... it would be nice, not to mention good marketing and public relations, for the Fresh & Easy Twitter "Tweeter" marketing or PR person to do so. anyway. At least we think so.

And -- by the way, locating the original reusable bag -- the one that got iKristen excited to start with -- and sending it to her for no charge would also be......well, down right good neighborly.

Epilogue

We think the story is a cute and interesting one.

But it's not just about cute and interesting. We think it illustrates just how powerful -- and how much more powerful the phenomenon will become -- of a tool social media sites are and can be for grocery retailers. It's all about retailer-consumer interaction without a filter. A conversation. And in this particular case it even led to a sale for Tesco's Fresh & Easy.

With the advent of social media, it's no longer your grandfather's -- or even your father's -- food and grocery retailing world any longer. Stay tuned.

Grocers & Social Media: Related Stories-Posts:

>April 27, 2009: Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr

>January 25, 2009: Twitter Me This Batman: Are You Using Twitter? If Not, You Probably Should Be

>January 18, 2009: The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value

>January 19, 2009: Sweet Tweets: Popular laist.com Web Site Picks Up Fresh & Easy Buzz's Buzz On Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Twitter.com; Adds A Little Buzz of its Own

>February 4, 2008: Social Media and Sense of Place: Phoenix, Arizona Fresh & Easy Market Site on Brightkite.com; 'Kissmecait' Does Some Retail Anthropology & Geography

>March 11, 2009: A Fresh Freebie: Tesco Fresh & Easy Offering Online Coupon Good For Free Reusable Canvas Shopping Tote Bag

>January 26, 2008: When Social Media Goes Bad - Maybe? Tesco and Waitrose Store Workers in the UK Use Facebook Sites to 'Diss' Store Customers

>February 18, 2009: Individuals, Society, Business, Grocery Retailing & More: 'Tweetminister,' 'Tweet Congress' and the Rise of 'Tweetocracy'

>September 10, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Politically-Connected Public Relations Firm APCO Worldwide

[Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]