It’s been out for a while now (New May 2013) and no doubt you’ve seen it on your social media. Coke have created a set of limited edition bottles which have your name on the bottle.

Well, not just your name. All of our names! The idea being you can see you friend’s name, buy them a Coke and share some happiness. Here’s what Coke have to say about it on their YouTube Channel:

This summer we’re swapping our name with yours. We’re replacing the iconic Coca-Cola logo on some of our bottles with 150 of Great Britain’s favourite names, so you can share a Coke with your friends, family and loved ones. So, who will you share a Coke with? #shareacoke

Not only is it fun, it works! And Coke are benefiting from free social media exposure by the boat load. And there’s more – all the shared pictures are happy smiling faces of  people who’ve been bought at Coke. Well today I got mine.

Food marketing is close to my heart. As a Food Marketing Consultant I see new trends / fads / ideas every week. It’s my job to look at these trends they way analysts look at the market. I take this stuff seriously.

Mostly I’m pretty unimpressed. Often there’s a weak attempt to re-package and re-message something we’ve seen before or something the World could certainly manage without.

But some trends linger and even become embedded. Some, like the Mediterranean Diet, even become a way of life. And with good reason. This is a diet which has been shown to convey long-term health benefits. That’s right. By simply substituting some of your current food ingredients for those eaten as part of the traditional Mediterranean Diet, you too can improve your health and, quite likely, extend your life.

In my previous post on the Mediterranean Diet I mentioned the excellent free ebook by Dr Simon Poole. You can download the entire ebook “The Taste of The Mediterranean” – a simple guide to benefiting from the so-called “Med Diet” approach by clicking here.

But Dr. Simon Poole wasn’t the only fascinating person I met while speaking at the FDIN Med Diet Seminar. Any one interested in Food Marketing will be interested to know Sara Baer-Sinnott, President of Oldways. You see while the populations around the Mediterranean have been following their diet for millennia, this way of eating has only been recognised as a “diet” since 1992.

Sara was at that first conference where the term was coined. She has seen the entire movement –  way of eating and way of life – develop. Sara has been an instrumental figure at Oldways since its early days, joining the staff in 1992 to work on one of the first overseas Symposiums (Food, Culture and Discovery in Spain) and the first Mediterranean Diet Conference.

That’s all interesting history, but what Oldways is really famous for, is for creating and popularising the “Mediterranean Diet Pyramid” – a contemporary approach to delicious, healthy eating.

The Oldways Mediterranean Diet Pyramid

On his website, Dr. Simon Poole explains the power of the Oldways Mediterranean Diet Pyramid:

“To achieve a beautifully balanced and complete diet which combines the best types of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients, use the pyramid. Reproduced by kind permission from Olways. A laminated copy on your fridge is a great idea!

This simple illustration shows how to combine foods in quantities which have been shown to most closely represent the Mediterranean diet – the healthiest food combination in the World.

Creating a healthy week is easy using these ideas.”

You can find out more about Oldways at their website here.

Ever since I was invited to speak the FDIN’s Mediterranean Diet Seminar in 2012, I’ve been slightly obsessed with the simple power of eating the mediterranean diet.

Not only is the food utterly delicious, it goes a long way towards extending your life. To my thinking, that’s pretty special. All you need to do is to substitute what you may have eaten for what they’d be eating in traditional Greece, Italy, Spain, etc. and you can do wonders for your health.

Interested? I thoughts so. So Dr Simon Poole – who chaired the seminar back in June 2012 has made his (rather fabulous) introductory ebook freely available online. All you need to do is download, read, and enjoy. … But you’ll get more health benefits if you begin eating the diet.

Sample the sections here, or click this link to download the whole ebook to enjoy your your mobile device…

Introduction

1. A Mediterranean Weekly Shopping List
2. Bringing Colour To Your Table
3. Health Giving Oils
4. Bowled Over By Fruit
5. Fabulous Fast Foods
6. Healing Herbs, Glorious Garlic And Luscious Lemons
7. Seeds Of Life
8. Wonderful Wine (Tea And Coffee)
9. A Secret Chapter For Chocolate Lovers
10. Exercise For Energy

ConclusionAppendices

You can even access Dr Simon Poole’s Keynote Presentation from the FDIN seminar here.

I spoke on how to commercialise the mediterranean diet. How companies can benefit from the consumer trend for this ever more popular way of eating. You can find my slides here.

On Thursday 13  June I will be speaking at the Fi Food Ingredients Conference on Reducing and Replacing Sugar & Sodium. Get a 25% discount by signing up and using the code: SPK25 and mentioning my name.

The event will be held at the Park Plaza Victoria, Amsterdam. The first day, 12 June, will focus on Sugar Reduction and Replacement while Day 2, will have a sodium / salt reduction theme.

Download full programme details as a pdf by clicking here.

In my talk, I’ll be addressing the topic of Food Marketing with a view to sodium reduction. Specifically, I’ll be exploring food marketing strategies and labelling requirements for reduced sodium products:

• Identifying which sodium replacers are classed as additives and which can give you a clean label
• Successfully marketing products when using additives and to gain consumer acceptance of reduced-sodium
• Should reformulation be promoted on the packaging, or is a ‘stealthy’ approach better?

Salt reduction is becoming an increasingly important topic in Food Marketing. I’m looking forward to learning exactly how the industry is really dealing with challenge. I hope I’ll see you in Amsterdam!

Mobile is not just the future of marketing. It’s right here right now. If your business isn’t marketing via mobile you are missing out!

My advice: Catch up!

There will be more mobile subscriptions than people in the world by the end of next year, according to a UN agency report.

The International Telecoms Union predicts that subscriptions will pass seven billion early in 2014.

There are currently 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions and 7.1 billion people.

The ITU World in 2013 report also found that more than [..]