My sister Julie, who lives in Stamford, Conn. with her hubby and son, just sent me a great example of how good re-branding can dramatically increase your sales.
She wrote, “I was arranging a client dinner when I came across a dish called ‘Peekytoe Crab.’ I loved the name so I looked it up. Turns out it was a crappy little mud crab no one wanted to eat, until someone thought of using its local slang name. As soon as they gave it a catchy name, top chefs started requesting it. Food critics that previously rated it lousy suddenly raved about it after tasting it.
Here’s an excerpt from the NY Times article from 1998: ‘Until last year, Ingrid Bengis, whose small but select seafood company is located in Stonington at the southern tip of Deer Island in the Penobscot Bay, called peekytoe crab ”Maine crab meat.” One of her customers, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, had been using it since 1985 but knew it only as Maine crab. Ms. Bengis became aware of the term about a year ago. ”Chefs started saying to me, ‘Is it peekytoe?’ ” she said. ”I never cared about branding, but now I realize other people care about those things.” Today crab cognoscenti like Mr. Vongerichten and Eberhard Muller of Lutece wax rhapsodic about it: ”Exceptional,” ”incredible,” ”so sweet, so fresh.'”
You can read the full article here.