Neal Stewart

I made a big fucking deal out of Snarf’s ripping people off a couple years ago.  I still don’t give those cheating motherfuckers any of my Turkey Sandwich business.

Now, you can add Subway to the list of cheaters.  They’re ripping people out of one inch on their sandwiches too.  Link to story here. 1 inch is a lot.  Would you want to walk away from 1 inch?  I certainly wouldn’t.

Sing it with me: 5 dollar 11 incher!

Pieces of shit.  Both of them.

It’s here.  The 2012 Thanksgiving Leftover Turkey Sandwich.  Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have done a video this year if it were not for you, the loyal Turkey Sandwich Report Nation.  You guys demanded a video and I think I came through for you in a big way.

This year, I really challenged myself.  I asked Mrs. Turkey Sandwich to pick out the ingredients and then I would work my magic from there – just like the show Chopped.  Let me say this with all sincerity and seriousness.  The sandwich that I created in this video was incredible.  Make this sandwich now.

Let’s roll the tape:

I’m a big fan of the show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (Triple D).  In fact, I’ve started searching out places where the host Guy Fieri has visited.  Yea, pretty nerdy, I know.  Whatever.  I take my food pretty serious.

Tomorrow is my birthday, so when Mrs. Turkey Sandwich asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner, I checked the innerettes to see if there was a place in Denver that has been featured on  ”Triple D” that I have not been to yet.

There was.  It’s called The Bagel Deli and it’s a couple miles from my house.  It’s a Jewish Deli and with that, my decision was made.

Typically when I visit one of the places featured on Triple D, I order what Guy ate on the show.  Since I was celebrating MY birthday, I was considering the Pastrami and Turkey Sandwich.  Before I made the commitment, I asked the waitress if the Turkey was real.  I had reason to believe it was because the menu prominently said “as authentic as it gets” but I stil wanted a confirmation.  Her response was “well, yeah, they slice it”.  That wasn’t really the response I was looking for, but the waitress made me kind of nervous and I could tell she wanted me to hurry up and make a decision.

The final assessment: no it’s not real Turkey.  It’s processed.  The Pastrami was strong, but the Turkey was weak.  Bagel Deli: I think you might be stretching the truth by saying “authentic as it gets” – at least when it comes to Turkey Sandwiches.

I pass by Ashkenaz Deli everyday on my walk in to work when I’m in Chicago.  I’m a big fan of Jewish-style/New York-style delis and the daily allure of a big-ass Turkey Sandwich convinced me to leave work early this week so I could hit them up before they closed.  I was immediately concerned when I noticed that they use the same Dietz & Watson bullshit deli meats that they sell at Albertson’s.

I ordered a Turkey Sandwich on Rye and made it extremely clear that I wanted DELI mustard.  I bring the sandwich home and find out that they squirt a bunch of yellow fucking mustard on there.  Thanks.  Sandwich ruined.

After I scraped off the yellow mustard, I notice the lettuce was on its last leg.

Don’t go to this place.  I don’t have another recommendation for a Turkey Sandwich in the Gold Coast neighborhood (Subway is the only other choice), so I would suggest just skipping the meal.

Just to be fair and balanced, maybe they know how to make an incredible Pastrami or Corned Beef sandwich – but I doubt it.

Not much going on here at the Turkey Sandwich Report lately.  In fact, absolutely nothing has been going on here for the last couple months because I have gone to the dark side.

Yes, I have been on a GLUTEN FREE diet.

For obvious reasons, a gluten free diet and Turkey Sandwiches don’t exactly jive with each other.  Some have recommended maintaining the Turkey Sandwich Report with sandwiches that don’t include bread.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to fucking insult my loyal readers with that kind of bullshit.  I’m either going all the way with this thing or I’m gonna hang it up altogether.

Another thing that goes with managing the world’s most popular Turkey Sandwich blog is that people constantly recommend sandwiches.  The last several weeks have been especially difficult because I have been in Chicago most of the time, which means I’me exposed to a completely new world of Turkey Sandwiches.  My friend Amber is also a Turkey Sandwich connoisseur and was talking a big game about this place called “Hannah’s Bretzel” where they put their sandwiches on pretzel bread.

Earlier this week, I had a long day of work and I was weak.  I was extremely hungry, knew I had absolutely no food at the apartment and just happened to be on the same street as Hannah Bretzel.  Amber’s glowing review of their sandwiches kept ringing in my head.

I’m a weak man.  Like a Turkey Sandwich zombie, I walked in and ordered the Thanksgiving Turkey Sandwich.  Yea, I could have got that sandwich on gluten free bread.  But I didn’t.  I went whole wheat.       Which didn’t make much sense because if I was going to throw everything out the window, I should have got that pretzel bread.  I’ll chalk that up to not thinking straight.

The sandwich was glorious.  The Turkey was great, the cheese (Brie) was awesome and they gave me the perfect amount of cranberry sauce.  Best of all, they don’t fuck the whole thing up with mayo.

And I’ll be honest.  This sandwich has led to others – which you’ll be hearing about soon.

My boss’s boss is a dude named Patrick Daugherty and he’s a pretty big deal where I work.  He’s a VP of something or other – not sure what, now that I think about it.  He’s such a big deal that he actually had the balls to call me out on supposedly “half-assing” this whole vote for the Super Bowl Turkey Sandwich thing.

After a meeting this week, he pulled me aside and said, “Did you get my comment on your blog?”  I said, “no.”  ”Well, I left one and I think you really screwed the pooch on this one.  You call yourself a marketer and you give us these boring-ass, no theme Turkey Sandwiches to choose from?  I think it’s bullshit.  And on top of that, you never even mentioned in your post about Perry’s Deli.  I bought you that sandwich and that’s what I get?  Poor form, Stewart, poor form.”

He went on to point out that I could have had a New York Deli-style sandwich where I pile a shitload of Turkey on Rye.  Or I could have done a Turkey Sandwich with some roast beef bullshit like they do in Boston.  Or I could have done something with an Indianapolis theme – not that I even know what that could be – but he thought that would be a good idea.

The fact of the matter is that this is MY BLOG and I can do whatever the hell I want.  When it comes to Turkey Sandwiches, I don’t have to bow to some dude just because he has a couple letters before his name.  I’m the CEO of this bitch and can do whatever I want.

But I am gonna call this whole thing off because you people don’t know what you’re talking about.  The Philly Turkey Sandwich ran away with the voting and I don’t want to make that sandwich.  I’m gonna make that Queso Smothered Turkey Sandwich…Remember?  I’m CEO.

The Turkey Sandwich Report wants to hear from you.  You tell us what we make for our Annual Super Bowl Turkey Sandwich.  We’ll rock the shit out of whatever sandwich wins and then we’ll show you how to make it.

You might recall some previous posts about our favorite stoner-themed sandwich shop, Cheeba Hut.  It’s easy to say that Cheeba Hut is our favorite stoner-themed sandwich shop because it’s the only one we’ve been to.  If you don’t recall those posts and are curious, click here.

Anyway, Cheeba Hut has invaded Denver.  Actually they probably invaded Denver about a year ago, but I don’t go downtown too much, so I hadn’t ever been to their new location until today.  I have to get my blood checked every 6 months for high cholesterol issues and it is my tradition to absolutely gorge myself after getting my blood drawn.  Since I was off work today, I decided to head downtown and see what Cheeba Hut was smokin.

I went with a “pinner” sized Afghani: Turkey, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese.  I also added their house sauce, which is a parmesan/oregano vinaigrette.  I’ll say this: it was better than the last sandwich I had there.  I’m not gonna put it in the Turkey Top 10 or anything, but it was solid.

Other than of course the names of their sandwiches, the best thing about Cheeba Hut is the fact that they have Kool-aid on tap.  Not really on tap like beer, but you get my point.  Stoners love them some Kool-aid.

In a twist of irony, I’ve never even been to Sandwich Shop we’re going to name the Inaugural Turkey Sandwich Report Sandwich Shop of the Year.  I just like their spunk.  What won me over in particular was their “commercial”.

A big congratulations to (drumroll) Big Ass Sandwiches of Portland, OR – the winners of the 1st Annual Turkey Sandwich Report Sandwich Shop of the Year!  The next time I’m in Portland, I’ll be by for The Big Ass Sandwich.  Or you can mail me one.  I don’t give a shit if it spent a couple days in a box.  I’ll eat that motherfucker.

It happens every year: You get a big-ass ham for Christmas Dinner and get stuck with a bunch of leftovers.  And we all know ham is not nearly as versatile as Turkey, so you’re pretty much stuck with plain ol’ ham sandwiches all the way through New Year’s.  Bo-ring.

So what can you do to take that boring ass ham sandwich to the next level?

The short answer is: Add Turkey.

The long answer is: buy a little Turkey and and bacon before Christmas.  Hide the Turkey  and don’t tell anyone you have it.  Once Christmas is over and everyone is resorting to a ham sandwich with yellow mustard, you discreetly bust out your Turkey and bacon.  Add to your ham sandwich and boom, you have a CLUB Sandwich.

Be warned, the vultures will come after your Turkey. It’s up to you as whether  you share or not.  Personally, I don’t, but that’s me.

The even longer answer is my Club Sandwich recipe:

• King’s Hawaiian Rolls
• Add a few slices of ham (I recommend Honeybaked Ham)
• Add Turkey
• Add Bacon
• Sharp Provolone Cheese
• Spread some French Onion Dip on the bread
• Stack it high
• Eat

Didn’t get to go to Austin for SXSWi? Don’t worry, you probably have better things to do and most of the good stuff ends up on the internets anyway.

Here’s a video of a panel that I think Oreo put on where they could talk about how awesome their Super Bowl social media activation was. As it turns out, the Oreo people didn’t talk all that much.  The good news is at Gary Vaynerchuk did and he shared a couple good insights:

1) Social Media is all about adding value.  Simple as that.

2) He created more buzz this year by meeting with 200 people individually rather than being a keynote speaker in front of 4000 people.

Scale is important.  We all want to get our message to a lot of people and sell a lot of stuff.  But gathering the biggest crowd for your message isn’t the only way to do it.  These days, it’s more about a truly providing value to a highly targeted audience and then letting them translate it in a relevant way to their audiences.

Btw, watching the whole panel is a bit tedious.  Only about 5% of the conversation is worth the time.  There’s a lot of smug in the room.

Back in 2004, I was the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand manager and we sponsored a bunch of events at SXSW.  We partnered with the likes of Vice Magazine, Urban Outfitters, Bloodshot records, the now defunct Arthur Magazine and supplied beer to their un-official SXSW parties.  This was before every brand under the sun was guerilla marketing the event and getting into the “side parties” was a big deal and only the real influencers were in the know.

Although I can’t say for sure, I don’t think we paid any money for the sponsorships.  If we did it was minimal.  Our biggest expenditure was simply product, which I believe was somewhere in the neighborhood of 400-500 cases.  At the time, a lot of people at the company thought I was crazy for giving so much beer away.

I remember talking to one of those partners at the end of the weekend and marveling at the number of people consumer connections we made.  PBR spent less than $10 and literally owned all of the insider parties.  I can look back at those sponsorships and say that connecting with the influencers who attended SXSW was worth the $8000 (ish) investment.

Although I’m not at SXSW this year, I have been back several times since that year and I’m amazed at how many brands have jumped on the bandwagon looking for ways to create buzz at the annual event.  It’s become so ubiquitous that every time someone wants to create buzz with hipsters or social media geeks, the first question is “what can we do at SXSW?” as if no one has thought of that.

Here’s the problem with the SXSW buzz plan: everyone is doing it.  There is so much marketing clutter in Austin for the two weeks of SXSW that no one knows who is sponsoring what.  They just know there is a party and everything is free.

What may seem like a shortcut to reach all of the right people all at once is really a mirage.  If you really want to connect with “influencers” (and that word IS played out) you need to consider three things:

• Can you get their full attention?  It is literally impossible to do this at SXSW because so many brands are talking.  Do you really think any one remembers what brand of Pino Noir they drank at Gary Vaynerchuk’s Secret Wine Part last night?  When PBR sponsored those parties back in 04, we were the exclusive beer of every event and the can became a badge that people carried around.  Even without obnoxious banners and swag to give away, it was hard to escape the branding.
• Are you invited to the party? If you don’t have a legitimate reason and permission to be there, you’re probably trying too hard.  Too many brands just show up at SXSW because they want hipsters to like them.  That doesn’t work.  When PBR sponsored events at SXSW, we were already part of the culture and all of the event organizers picked us as their beer sponsor.  This resulted in consumers were both surprised and appreciative we were part of the events.
• Will they remember and recommend you?  The whole point of generating some “buzz” at SXSW is to reach influencers, right?  Too many brands forget that the role an influencer is supposed to play is one of recommending brands and services to others.  Will they be in a position to do that after they fly out of Austin?  Do they know enough about you?  Did they get a memorable experience?

If you can’t check the box on these three things, you may want to look at other ways to get the word out on your brand.  If you can’t come up with any other ideas, get in touch with me.  I’ll help you out.

Has anyone ever told you that you should do something that scares you at least once a day?  I’m not sure I do that on a regular basis, but I think I have at least satisfied the requirement of doing one, big, scary thing for this year: I quit my job.

I quit a job I really liked about a month ago and it was an incredibly hard decision because I have never been as set in my ways as I was in this last job.  On the surface, everything seemed to be right with it:

• I had a fairly short drive into work
• I worked with really nice people
• The company treated their employees with respect and offered great benefits
• I wasn’t digging ditches or laying asphalt on 100 degree days

Things were good but something was missing: I just didn’t love what I did.  I knew I was capable of doing more and for whatever reason, I’m one of those people that is always looking for the next challenge.

Then it happened: I got what I wished for.  I wanted an opportunity to build a marketing team at a small, entrepreneurial company and  I got an offer from a company that fit that description exactly.  All of this just happened to come at a time when I was reading Seth Godin’s new book, The Icarus Deception.  In that book, Seth challenges his readers to “fly as close to the Sun” as possible and “choose yourself” to be the person that makes things happen – or as he calls it, “art”.  When it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to accept the offer, I literally had to stop reading the book because it depressed me too much.  The thought of not having the confidence in myself to take a gamble really pissed me off.

So, here I am two weeks into my new gig and I can now safely say that I absolutely made the right decision.  All of that fear I had through the decision making process is gone and I am completely energized about work again.  That might sound weird to some people and I can totally understand that.  Not all people live to work and that’s totally fine.  I just happen to be one of those nerds that gets a lot of fulfillment out of making things happen and building stuff – or as it is in my profession, brands.

If you are faced with a big career-changing decision anytime in the near future, I don’t envy you.  It can be an incredibly painful process to go through and it takes time for the answer to become clear.

I’m not going to sit here and say that the risky and scary choice is always the right one because everyone’s situation is different.  What I can tell you is that the old saying of “be careful what you wish for” is really good advice.  If you are focused on a goal and work toward it everyday, there is a damn good chance it’s going to happen.  If you are absolutely clear on what you’re wishing for and everyone who has a stake in the decision making process is aligned to that goal from the beginning, the choice will be a whole lot easier.

I start a new job tomorrow. The title I have been given is “Director of Brand Marketing” and one of the members of my team is an “Associate Brand Manager”. That sounds familiar and simple enough.

But then I started thinking about the kind of culture I want to build. I don’t think I want to build a typical marketing department culture.  I’ve seen that play out before and I’m not a fan.  Plus, that’s part of the reason why I’m leaving my last job.  Too many politics, not enough action and too many good ideas being killed.  And how old are these department names and titles?  Hasn’t everyone admitted that marketing has dramatically changed in the past 10 years?  If that is the case, shouldn’t what we call this discipline change too?

This may seem like semantics, but I see it as the start of how our department will behave and interact with partners, consumers, retailers, etc.  Setting this tone now is important to me.

The word “marketing” just feels wrong from the start.  It sounds like talking AT people instead of co-creating with people and connecting our brand with actions that people want to talk about.  The definition of “marketing” is:

the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

Ugh. Bo-RING.

“Brand Management” feels all wrong too.  The definition of management is: the act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control. Do Brand Managers really have “control”?  Do they really want control?  Not in the culture I want to be a part of.  Haven’t we all admitted that marketers aren’t in control because the consumers are now?

So what should I call this department?  What should our version of “brand managers” be called? What should my title be?

I’m not totally sure, but I’m thinking something with the word “activism” and/or “activist” makes sense.  The definition of “activism” is: a policy of taking direct and often militant action to achieve an end, esp a political or social one.  Yea, the military stuff sounds a little over-the-top, but I like the “direct and often” part.

I was also thinking something with the word “cultivation”.  I like the idea of planting seeds and growing them.  That fits nicely with my philosophy of marketing.

That’s where I am with it right now, but I am certainly up for suggestions.  Let me know what you think.

Fish McBites.  It really does sound disgusting, doesn’t it?  Facebookers are making their dislike for this disgusting creation known on the McDonald’s page and the comments are pretty funny.

The really interesting part is that McDonald’s is actually BUYING the platform for people to trash their product.  This message appeared on my Facebook timeline and I am not a “Fan” of McDonalds.

Why wouldn’t Mickey D’s target this message toward existing fans?  I get that it’s Lent and consumers are looking for options to eat fish, but I just don’t think that the Fish McBites is the innovation that is going to drive NEW traffic into their stores.

McDonalds: go after your existing fans first.  If the product is worth anything, they will tell their fellow fish-loving friends.

Link to the Facebook page here.