The most famous ocean liner in the world, Titanic, now has a shrimp named after her.

We buy into the spin every day whether it’s when we’re looking for a new vacuum cleaner such as the Oreck Halo that claims to kill viruses or a new Hyundai that claims to be the car with “America’s Best Warranty.” Nobody really challenges claims like these, nor has anyone ever sued Mary’s Sub Shop for having the worst cheesesteak despite her “world’s greatest” claim.

Superlatives are all around us and these words and phrases play a major role in our purchasing decisions, which is why they are used constantly. Whether the purveyor of the goods can actually back up these descriptors is another story. Some succeed, most fail.

I use the humble shrimp as an example.

The ocean’s favorite bottom feeder has a marketing life of its own in every restaurant in every corner of the world. Shrimp farmers raise various size shrimp from the tiny, tiny salad shrimp to the larger variety that make up a delicious shrimp cocktail. The fish industry assigned codes for the various size of shrimp based on the number that make up a pound. For example, the U-10 size shrimp mean you get 10 shrimp in a pound, whereas the U-15 comes 15 shrimp to a pound. Restaurants don’t normally tell you what U size the shrimp you are ordering will be, instead they use superlatives to speak about these diminutive crusteations.

“X-Large Peel & Eat”

“Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail”

Many times when the creature arrives next to a side of lemon and a dabble of cocktail sauce, we’re disappointed. X-Large and Jumbo aren’t quantifiable and one restauranteur’s vision of Jumbo may be a U-15 while another may be a U-6.

One of my favorite steakhouses is Old Homestead. With locations in the Meatpacking District in New York City, the Borgata Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City and at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida, the Old Homestead has a unique take on the shrimp. They tossed aside the trite descriptors found on way too many menus and simply call their shrimp “Titanic” and it’s for good reason. These babys are U-4′s (4 to a pound) and at $9 a piece, they’re worth it.

I was in the mood for a good steak last night so down to the Club I went for dinner at Old Homestead. Now before you start adding this to your to-do list, the Boca Raton location is only open to hotel guests and Club members. Having dined here many times before, I knew just want I wanted and I wasn’t disappointed.

4 Titanic Shrimp from Old Homestead = 1 pound.	To put some perspective on the size. That's my thumb next to one of the Titanic Shrimp.
Here's how it stacks up to a 12oz Filet Mignon.	That's one Titanic Shrimp!
That's not a lobster, that's a shrimp.	And when it was all over, this is what was left.

While using the word “Titanic” to describe a shrimp may be a stretch of the imagination, compared to other descriptions of this classic appetizer, Old Homestead delivers upon the diner’s expectations.

Now if it were only that easy for cheesesteaks.

Granted to be on this page you need to pay. It’s an advertising section. However, that doesn’t excuse the lack of content…. especially content that is supposed to promote area businesses. For example, Fred Smith is looking to move to Wilkes-Barre from Houston. As part of Fred’s move, he needs a job. He stumbles upon the local newspaper’s site to check out the help wanted ads and sees this on the front page. After clicking on it, Fred leaves with the impression that there aren’t any “employers of choice” in the area. I may be stretching that a little, but there’s a lesson to be learned here.

Content is king on ANY website. Whether you’re selling a product or delivering the news, lack of advertised content is laziness. Plain and simple.

Sorry Times Leader, you get the #fail of the day for this one.

The latest Boot Camp wrapped up last night and marks the seventh such event I had the pleasure of putting together. I always enjoy meeting with other eCommerce store owners to learn about their business, what they’re doing to drive sales and most importantly, how they’re combating a challenging economy. As we move into the busiest time of the year for most merchants, the general feeling is that of uncertainty. Uncertainty about whether or not Christmas 2009 will be better or worse than Christmas 2008. Personally, I feel it’s going to be worse.

If you listen to the talking heads on television every night, they make you feel like the economy is on an upswing. Yet at the same time they report that the unemployment rate is nearing 10% as more and more people are laid off. With 10% of the working class not getting a paycheck every week, spending just isn’t happening. Store owners I talked to are feeling the effects; some more than others.

Knowing that store owners need to be cautious in what they spend to attract business this season, I tailored most of the sessions at this latest Boot Camp on free and cost effective ways to get customers. Social Media, SEO, effective Internet Marketing and features designed to convert were the hot topics.

One thing that I did notice was that many store owners have not fully embraced the power of Social Media. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are free ways for business owners to capture customers, but few of the attendees are actually using them to their full potential. Some expressed a lack of time or an inability to gauge Social Media’s ROI as reasons for not exploiting these means of advertising. No matter what your opinion or reasons for not taking advantage of Social Media are, the fact that you should be using them to get your message out is paramount.

I always enjoy sitting in on the Boot Camp presentations because I always learn something new. While I try to keep up on trends, there’s always something that I missed! I enjoy listening to the presenters even if it’s on a topic I’m very familiar with because I could always stand to learn just a little bit more or get a refresher on the topic.

We had a great group of attendees this time around and a nice mix of new and seasoned eCommerce store owners. This always makes for a great Boot Camp as the pros tend to help the newbies and the newbies walk away with a lot of great information to help them be on their way to online success.

While this Boot Camp may be behind me for now, I’ve already started working on the next one!

Special thanks to The Cafe @ Pic-a-Deli, Pazzo Restaurant and The Woodlands Inn & Resort.

For those who were unable to attend, here are some photos from the event:

Huh?

I have to wonder what goes through the high-paid marketing people’s brains when decisions like this are made. I would have loved to be in that meeting when someone said, “I think we should take pizza out of our name and just be known as The Hut.” Radio Shack was thinking about dropping “Radio” from their name and just call themselves “The Shack.” Well, they do. Kinda. They didn’t officially change the name or tinker with the logo, but they market around being known as The Shack.

The old and new Pizza Hut logo.

With Pizza Hut a division of Pepsico, this might just be the brainchild of the person who convinced someone high enough up in the company to change the iconic Pepsi logo.

The old and new Pepsi logo.

Both of these moves remind me of “New Coke.” Children of the 80′s will remember that fiasco, those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, go to Google. I was a little dismayed when Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to go by KFC because they didn’t like the connection with “fried” in their name. Hmmmm…. how do you cook that chicken? You fry it! I don’t think anyone would go to Kentucky Fried Chicken looking for boiled chicken.

I remember the first time I saw the new Pepsi logo. I stopped, took a double take, wiped a tear from my eye and shook my head in disbelief. A logo change is an expensive undertaking. All those vending machines, soda fountains, delivery trucks, tractor trailers, signage, uniforms, whatever need to be redone. Is it really worth it? Thank God they didn’t tinker with the formula.

Walmart felt they needed an update to their image when they rolled out their new logo. I hated the old one, in fact I hate Walmart, so I won’t give them too much attention. But their change was needed to take them from the 1970′s into the 2000′s. Let them spend all of Sam’s money changing signs and relettering trucks, they can certainly afford it, and I won’t lose any sleep over it.

The old and new Walmart logo.

I’m a stickler when it comes to branding. A lot of money is spent getting people to connect an image with your company name. To change that is risky. I was afraid to add a little twinkle to my company’s logo or even add a drop shadow. I just hope I don’t wake up one morning and see the styled “Coca-Colap” logo restyled using Comic Sans.

At 9am Friday morning, the 15 organizations arrived at the Junior Achievement building in Pittston, PA to be presented with the fruits of the teams labor. There was even a tear or two shed from some of the attendees who were thrilled with the work that was done and are excited to start using their new brochures or inviting people to visit their new website.

Below are pictures of the organizations receiving their presentations:

Special thanks to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader and Citizens Voice for their coverage of the event.

Keep your eye on the CDS Creative website at http://www.cdscreative.com for samples of the work which was completed.