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Long known for the quirky attitude conveyed in its advertising, Jack in the Box restaurants started serving bacon-flavored milkshakes on Feb. 2, Hawaii’s restaurants included.
It’s all about the bacon, these days.
Bacon Salt, Baconnaise (bacon-flavored mayonnaise), bacon-flavored lip balm, competing brands of bacon-flavored soda, bacon-flavored vodka, bacon-flavored this, bacon-flavored that.
The popular pork product has become somewhat of a meme, a sort of online/pop-culture rave-worthy meat-icon/joke, upon which companies are capitalizing.
"The whole bacon line is part of that ‘Marry Bacon‘ campaign" trumpeted during the quick-service restaurant’s Super Bowl commercial, said Donna Yano, vice president of Jack in the Box Hawaii.
While the BLT (bacon, lettuce tomato) Cheeseburger was featured in the game-day TV spot, the shake was not. Rather, it was on the website marrybacon.com, which also was promoted in the burger spot.
The shake is sort of a secret menu item. "You don’t see p.o.p. (point-of-purchase) posters," said Yano. It is being marketed on the marrybacon site, via social media and by more traditional word of mouth.
On the marrybacon site, text with the image of the bacon shake, made with vanilla ice cream, bacon-flavored Torani syrup, whipped topping and a maraschino cherry, indicates that it is a limited-time offer, that it is "limited as limited can be. There’s no telling when it might disappear," and encourages people to "go get one right now."
Lest one not eat pork, the bacon-flavored Torani syrup used in the shakes does not contain bacon, pork or any sort of meat. It is vegetarian.
"It truly is," said Andrea Ramirez, customer marketing manager at San Francisco-based Torani, a unit of R. Torre & Co. Further, "our plant is kosher," she said. "When we first ran the product, the rabbi was checking everything … to make sure it was on the up and up." Ramirez did not know whether the rabbi sampled the product, but "he got a kick out of it."
The flavor in the syrup is derived by smoking soy and wheat, so it is vegetarian but not gluten-free, she said.
Torani products are available at supermarkets on Maui, Oahu, Hawaii and Kauai and via e-commerce.
Hawaii stuff online
LeiHut.com, a Hawaii-based multivendor e-commerce site with about two dozen small businesses offering their wares, recently launched its beta version "with a mission to help small Hawaii businesses get their wares out to the world," said founder Steve Sue.
Online malls often are single-warehouse operations offering items from several brands owned by the same company, "but our business model is a little different," Sue said. Online shoppers will be "dealing directly with any vendor."
Most local entrepreneurs don’t have the bandwidth or other resources to put up an e-commerce website, do the search-engine-optimization work and market via social media while creating additional product, Sue said.
"Our goal is to help them have an online presence and sell their products to the world," she said.
Some products lend themselves better to online sales than others, Sue said. For instance, a $2,000 jewelry item can be mailed for $10 including insurance, while mailing a lower-value bag of potato chips might not pencil out.
Vendors are accepted into the LeiHut.com merchant circle at no cost, Sue said. Product photos can be submitted, but the company also will shoot product images against a decidedly local backdrop, say, at a beach or on a banana leaf or something that represents the Hawaii marketplace from which it is sold. The products should be surrounded by Hawaii, not just against a plain, light-colored backdrop, he said."It’s important how we merchandise. It also helps us brand Hawaii as a place of business."
LeiHut.com’s Valentine’s Day promotion invites customers to post a picture of a Valentine musubi to its Facebook page. The photo winning the most "likes" will win a Spam Musubi care pack that includes a heart-shaped Spam cutter — which will be shipped anywhere in the U.S., including to oneself. The site also is selling the care packages, and 10 percent of the proceeds benefit Sue’s nonprofit Lemonade Alley student entrepreneurship program.
Hotel Awarded
The Waikiki Edition, now known as The Modern Honolulu, won an honorable mention in the February issue of Travel + Leisure magazine (on newsstands Friday). The hotel was designed by Yabu Pushelberg with creative consultant Ian Schrager (of Studio 54 fame) and in partnership with Marriott International, T+L said. The best-designed-resort award went to Amangiri in Canyon Point, Utah.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
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